C.J. Adrien's Blog, page 7

I think I Solved the Vikings of Namborg Mystery.

The Viking presence in Nantes, France, which the Vikings called Namborg, presents a historical enigma that has long perplexed scholars. When Alain Barbetorte, a Breton nobleman, reconquered Brittany from the Vikings and retook Nantes in 937 A.S., he found a largely derelict city almost abandoned. This discovery remains puzzling. According to Lucien Mucet’s phases of Viking expansion and the similarities between Nantes and Jorvik in the British Isles, Nantes should have developed into a bustling trade hub like Jorvik. Why this disparity occurred remains unresolved, but I believe I have uncovered a key factor that explains it.

This mystery came up during a conversation on the Vikingology podcast with my co-host, Terri Barnes, and our guest, Dr. Tom Horne. Dr. Horne, a renowned scholar on Viking history, shared his research on the Great Heathen Army in Northern England, which sparked an intriguing discussion about Viking settlement strategies. Dr. Horne’s concept of the “nodal system” posits that the Vikings did not seek to conquer large territories but instead focused on controlling specific trade centers, or “nodes,” that acted as hubs of economic activity. This theory challenges the conventional view of Viking expansion as a widespread conquest of land and people. Dr. Horne’s insights inspired me to rethink the nature of Viking influence in Britain and continental Europe.

I questioned whether the prevailing narrative of the Danish conquest and population replacement in what became the Danelaw was an oversimplification. This theory, which explains the proliferation of Norse place names in England, suggests that the Danes intermixed with and often displaced the local Anglo-Saxon populations. However, was Dr. Horne suggesting an alternative interpretation? Could Norse control over the economy, rather than mass settlement, lead locals to adopt Norse as a lingua franca for trade? If this were the case, the proliferation of Norse place names would not result from population replacement but rather a product of cultural and economic exchange.

I considered a historical parallel with pre-Roman England. Before the Romans arrived, the inhabitants of Britain were not Celts, yet they had adopted the Celtic language and culture of Gaul through trade. Could Viking place names in England similarly reflect the impact of trade and language rather than the remnants of large-scale conquest?

In a previous Vikingology podcast episode, Dr. Claire Downham suggested that Norse had become the language of trade in the British Isles. This theory complements the idea that Viking place names did not necessarily signify territorial conquest but instead marked the influence of Norse traders over the region’s economy. Trade, not settlement, may have driven the spread of Norse language and culture. In no uncertain terms, the Vikings acquired that control through force, but they were strategic about allocating their resources given their small numbers.

Supporting this hypothesis, I recall a study from the early 2000s that investigated the presence of Norse DNA in modern English populations. The study concluded that the genetic makeup of Anglo-Saxons and Danes from the Viking Age was too similar to distinguish between them. This result led some scholars to question the extent of Viking genetic influence in England. But could this conclusion be based on a misunderstanding of the Viking impact? What if the Vikings did not leave a significant genetic legacy in England because they did not settle in as substantial numbers as previously thought? Instead, their influence might have been primarily cultural, transmitted through trade and language rather than biological exchange. This would explain the relatively low genetic impact despite the abundance of Viking place names.

Turning back to the mystery of Nantes in Brittany, the Viking occupation lasted approximately 30 years, yet the region lacks the abundance of Viking place names found in England. In fact, they have none. This raises a critical question: why did the Viking presence in Nantes fail to produce the same economic and cultural results as Jorvik? Previous scholarship has suggested the Vikings did not have the numbers they did in the British Isles, limiting their ability to impact the region. However, if force of numbers did not lead to the wealth of place names in England, that cannot be the answer. If trade and language played a critical role in the legacy of Norse place names in the British Isles, what prevented it from accomplishing the same in Nantes?

Linguistic differences provide a crucial clue. Breton and Frankish, the languages spoken in Nantes and broader Brittany, would have been far more distinct from Old Norse than Anglo-Saxon. The Vikings and Anglo-Saxons, scholars believe) could understand each other’s languages with relative ease, facilitating using Norse as a lingua franca for trade. In contrast, the linguistic gulf between Norse and the languages of Brittany and France would have made it far more difficult for Norse to become a common language of commerce. This linguistic barrier could explain why the Vikings in Brittany did not have the same long-term cultural influence as they did in England. They took over the nodes, such as the city of Nantes, but the local population did not buy into making Norse the defacto language of trade.

Moreover, the nature of Viking trade in the British Isles differed significantly from that in France. In England, much of the Viking trade flowed back to Scandinavia, creating a continuous economic exchange that reinforced the use of Norse as a trade language. In Brittany, however, the Vikings traded primarily with the Franks, establishing markets under royal charters and securing tax exemptions, as we had discussed with Christian Coojimans in a previous episode of Vikingology. For instance, salt producers on Noirmoutier were granted tax exemptions in 828 amid an alleged Viking occupation, and a market was set up on the island of Betia (near Nantes) in 853 by royal charter. The trade structure in Brittany did not facilitate the same kind of economic integration with Scandinavia that occurred in the British Isles, where Jorvik became a hub for the exchange of goods and culture across Britain and Scandinavia. As a result, Nantes did not become the vibrant trade center that Jorvik was, and the lack of a lingua franca like Norse further hindered the Vikings’ ability to exert lasting influence.

In conclusion, the mystery of Nantes and the Viking presence in Brittany challenges our conventional understanding of Viking expansion. Rather than seeing the Vikings as large-scale conquerors, it seems more plausible that they controlled key economic nodes through trade and language. The Vikings’ impact on place names in England likely stemmed from their control of trade rather than widespread settlement or conquest. This theory also helps explain why genetic studies have failed to uncover a significant Viking legacy in England—the Vikings’ influence was primarily cultural, transmitted through trade and language rather than biological exchange. By examining the Viking experience in Nantes, we gain new insights into how the Vikings shaped the economies and cultures of the regions they interacted with, and we begin to see the Viking Age not as a period of conquest but as an era of profound cultural and linguistic exchange.

OK, but there was a good amount of conquering. ;)

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Is Santa Claus Really Odin?

A persistent meme has circulated on the internet for years, claiming that the Norse god Odin inspired today’s Santa Claus. With his flowing white beard, gift-giving tendencies, and supernatural mount, Odin, the All-Father of Norse mythology, certainly shares some surface-level similarities with the modern Christmas figure. But how valid is this claim? Let’s examine the roots of this intriguing theory, review the evidence, and explore why the historical Santa Claus ultimately owes little to the Norse god.

The Odin-Santa Connection: A Closer Look

The Odin-Santa theory largely stems from several striking parallels between the two figures:

Appearance: Odin is often depicted as an old man with a long, white beard who wears a cloak and hat, a description that resembles the traditional image of Santa Claus. He has also been depicted wearing festive colors associated with Christmas, such as gold, green, and red.

Gift-Giving: In Norse myths, Odin rode his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, during the Wild Hunt, a supernatural event that took place in winter. Some interpretations suggest that children left offerings of food for Sleipnir, and in return, Odin provided small gifts, a practice similar to leaving cookies and milk for Santa Claus.

Flying Mount: Odin’s Sleipnir could cover great distances and even fly, much like Santa’s reindeer, which pull his sleigh through the skies on Christmas Eve. Some have even proposed a connection between Sleipnir’s eight legs and Santa’s eight reindeer.

All-Seeing Nature: Odin was recognized as a god of wisdom and knowledge, frequently observing the world. This omniscience parallels Santa’s purported ability to know whether children have been naughty or nice.

Evidence for Norse Influence on Christmas Traditions

The argument that Odin influenced Santa Claus is part of a broader narrative about how pagan traditions have merged with Christian holidays over time. The Norse Yule festival, celebrated during winter, featured feasts, toasts, and gift-giving. Some scholars argue that elements of Yule were incorporated into Christmas traditions as Christianity spread through Scandinavia and northern Europe.

Furthermore, Father Christmas, a precursor to Santa Claus in England, was sometimes portrayed as a bearded, cloaked old man. This description might have evoked memories of the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of Odin, Woden, or other folkloric figures.

The True Origins of Santa Claus

Despite these intriguing parallels, the notion that Odin directly inspires Santa Claus breaks down under closer examination. The contemporary Santa Claus has a much more straightforward and traceable origin, rooted in historical figures and folklore.

Saint Nicholas: The historical Saint Nicholas, a 4th-century Christian bishop from Myra (in present-day Turkey), is the basis for Santa Claus. Renowned for his generosity, especially toward children and the less fortunate, Saint Nicholas’s compassionate deeds inspired tales that spread throughout Europe. In the Netherlands, he became known as Sinterklaas, who later became Santa Claus through Dutch settlers in America.

The American Evolution: The modern portrayal of Santa Claus owes much to 19th-century American writers and artists. In 1823, Clement Clarke Moore’s poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (commonly known as “The Night Before Christmas”) solidified many of Santa’s characteristics: a cheerful demeanor, a sleigh pulled by reindeer, and the tradition of delivering gifts down chimneys. This version of Santa Claus was further popularized by political cartoonist Thomas Nast, whose illustrations from the late 1800s established the red-suited, plump figure we recognize today.

Commercialization and Coca-Cola: In the 20th century, Santa Claus emerged as a global icon, partly due to advertising. The Coca-Cola Company’s holiday campaigns in the 1930s, portraying Santa Claus as a jolly, plump man in a red suit, cemented his image in popular culture.

Breaking Down the Odin-Santa Myth

While it is tempting to draw connections between Odin and Santa Claus, historical evidence suggests that Santa’s development was influenced more by Christian traditions, folklore, and commercialization than by Norse mythology. Let’s examine the specific claims:

Appearance: The image of Santa Claus as an elderly, bearded man in a red suit or cloak is more likely derived from Saint Nicholas and later artistic interpretations than from Odin. Odin’s depiction varies significantly across different sources, and his appearance as a bearded wanderer is not exclusive to Norse mythology.

Gift-Giving: The connection between Odin’s gifts during the Wild Hunt and Santa’s presents is weak. There is little evidence to suggest that Odin’s mythical journeys involved anything similar to the widespread and structured gift-giving associated with Santa Claus.

Flying Mount: Sleipnir’s ability to fly is an intriguing parallel, but flying mounts are a common motif in mythologies worldwide. The idea of flying reindeer pulling a sleigh is a much later invention and has no direct connections to Norse mythology.

Omniscience: Santa’s ability to know about children’s behavior is more likely influenced by Christian concepts of divine omniscience and judgment than by Odin’s wisdom and attentiveness.

Conclusion: A Blend of Traditions

Like horns on a helmet, the notion that Odin directly inspires Santa Claus is a modern myth and not a historical fact. While Christmas traditions have absorbed elements from various cultural practices, including Norse Yule celebrations, the figure of Santa Claus is primarily a product of Christian sainthood, 19th-century American literature, and modern commercialism.

Odin’s presence in the meme-ified version of Santa Claus reflects our collective fascination with linking modern traditions to ancient roots. However, it’s essential to approach such claims critically, recognizing the rich tapestry of influences that shape our holidays without overstating any single source. Ultimately, Santa Claus is born not of Asgard, but of human imagination, molded by centuries of storytelling, adaptation, and cultural exchange.

While Santa is not Odin, that does not mean you shouldn’t treat yourself to something nice this holiday season. Give yourself the gift of Vikings and download my latest Viking historical fiction novel The Fell Deeds of Fate.

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From the inside flap:

For Hasting the Avenger, fame and glory were supposed to last forever.

Two years after the legendary sack of Paris, Hasting remains haunted—not by his triumph but by the bitter twist of fate that Ragnar’s name made it into the songs of the Skalds and not his. Drowning in resentment and drink, he has become a shadow of the warrior he once was. When his wife divorces him, strips him of his wealth, and takes his son, Hasting’s world collapses around him.

Then, a chance reunion with his old comrade Bjorn Ironsides sparks an audacious idea. He will outdo Paris by accomplishing something so grand and unforgettable that the world will never again question his legacy. His target: Miklagard, the Great City of Constantinople.

Driven by a desperate need to prove his worth, Hasting embarks on an epic journey across roiling seas, icy rivers, and untamed lands, rallying old allies and clashing with powerful new rivals. To succeed, Hasting must confront the root of his obsession with immortality and the cost it demands, not only of himself but of those who follow him.

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THE FELL DEEDS OF FATE, CHAPTER 1 EXCERPT: SELFISH AND WICKED

It is true what they say, that I was cursed the day I sacked Paris. Fame, glory, and great wealth should have been mine, but they were stolen. Another took my place among the skalds and scribes. By a cruel twist of fate, the name the Franks remembered from my meeting with Charles was that of my ally Ragnar, who no more propelled us to victory than the goats we kept for food. I conquered Paris. It was mine. And it was I who should have been remembered.

Embittered by the usurpation of my deeds, I resigned myself to my island. I would start a family with my new wife, Reifdis, the daughter of my former ally, Jarl Thorgisl, and I hoped I might find respite. At first, she inspired in me a desire for peace, to raise a family, and to let the world’s woes pass us by. We had a Royal Charter signed by the Celts and the Franks to own the land we cultivated and a hirð at our call to defend us. The gods gave us many blessings, but they always collect on their debts. Peace was not my fate. No, the beast in my heart beckoned. It called to me. My restlessness made me irritable and discontented, and my behavior drove Reifdis mad.

On the day the gods decided our first child should join us in this world, two years after I returned from Paris, distant sails dotted the pale blue horizon to the west. It was a clear spring day. Flowers sprang up in the fields, the birds sang their songs, and Reifdis’ moans of agony rang out across our village as the men donned their arms and armor and readied for battle.

I stayed with Reifdis in our bedchamber as long as I could while her midwife worked to relieve her pain. My wife stood in the corner of the room, her hands pressed against the wood-planked walls, standing over the mud her water had made when it hit the ashen floor. I had fought countless battles and witnessed many horrors, but none had prepared me for the fear I felt watching Reifdis fight for her life to create a new one. And yet, as much as I wanted to stay with her to see it through, the wider world drew me away with a forceful knock at the door.

“Fuck—off!” Reifdis roared.

The fury of her growl gave me pause. I slipped out of the room to find my húskarl, or head warrior, Bjarki, dressed for war and ready to set sail. He was an older man with a broad face, striking red hair, and a thick beard braided with Frankish glass beads.

“The men are ready, Hasting,” he said.

“The baby is close,” I said.

“The men are waiting,” Bjarki insisted.

He was right. As much as I wanted to witness my child’s birth, I had a duty to my people. I nodded and slipped back into the bedchamber.

“I have to leave now,” I said.

“Go,” she groaned between labored breaths. “If there’s one thing you’re good for, it’s fighting. If by some luck I survive this hell, I don’t want my baby to be killed by Danes or Saracens.”

She let out a reckless laugh, but her pain gripped her and brought her back down. Her courage and grit shined through even in this most dangerous of times, and despite her cutting words, I admired her for it. I tried to kiss her on the cheek, but she swatted me off, and I fled.

Bjarki and I marched with all due haste to our ships. Mine was a warship with thirty-two oarlocks named Sail Horse. She had a prow carved in the likeness of the serpent Nidhog and a checkered sail of blue and yellow—the colors of my house. I inherited her from my first captain, Eilif, who died at the Giant’s Throne, and I had owned her for over ten years. She had been my most reliable and faithful companion.

Bjarki boarded his ship, which he had named Oak Raven. She was a larger warship than Sail Horse, with sixty oarlocks and a simple post for a prow. He had offered her to me since it was the largest of our ships, but I could not part with mine. Our third ship, Riveted Serpent, looked identical to Sail Horse except for the simple post for a prow. She belonged to one of our other hirðmenn named Ake. Ake was, like Bjarki, an older man, perhaps in his fifties, with greying black hair and a narrow jawline under a hooked nose. He had served Reifdis’ father in Ireland before joining our hirð out of loyalty to her.

I stepped up to the prow, riding Sail Horse like a steed over the water. A cool breeze brushed back my long, curly brown hair, and the waves crashing against our hull sprayed the air with salt. It brought me back to when I first rode the ship’s prow with my friend Asa. We were children then. It had been my first journey to the coast of Armorica, which I now called my home, and I had fallen in love with the richness of its land and sea from the moment I first saw them.

Sail Horse crashed into a rogue wave, jolting me out of my memory and back to the task at hand. Closing in on our prey, my crew lowered our sails and set our oars to water. The shift in the ship’s tilt lurched me forward, forcing me to catch myself on the gunwale. Toward the horizon, the shapes of hulls and sails lurked like shark fins over the waves. They had three long and narrow ships with two triangular sails overhead. When they saw us lower our sails, they steered out of the wind and in our direction, using their oars to gallop at us. It was a bad sign.

Bjarki steered Oak Raven up beside us, close enough so we could speak. He had donned his maille shirt over a wool overcoat, with a gold-tipped leather belt tied around his waist. He leaned over his gunwale, sloped in the shoulders, and shouted, “They’re galleys.”

Galleys are warships, or at least the most common warships sailed by the Franks, the Celts, and the Moors. They have long and slender hulls, not unlike our ships, but they are built by laying the planks edge to edge and sealing them with caulking. It makes their hulls strong but inflexible and heavy. Our ships overlap the planks—or strakes—making them far faster, more flexible, and able to navigate in shallower water. Galleys have a large sail at the center and a smaller one in front of it, and like our ships, they use oars to maneuver in close quarters. But unlike ours, one cannot tell how many men they carry by how many oars they put into the water. Their fighting men do not row as ours do.

These galleys flew a black flag, the symbol of Moorish raiders. And the Moors had a vendetta against our kin. Moorish raids in Francia had started long before the Danes and the Northmen arrived, but the frequency with which they betook themselves north from Al-Andalus had increased tenfold since we had sacked their capital, Seville. I had no small part in that raid. My head would have made a fine prize for their captain. In fact, I had a sneaking suspicion that’s what he was after—not loot, not slaves, but my head.

“Strike fast and strike hard.” I pointed to the galley at the center. “The one flying the black banner and the smaller gold one underneath it, that’s their leader. Tell Ake that we all strike him first. We’ll take them down one by one.”

“Just like last time,” Bjarki said with a smile.

“Just like last time,” I replied.

Bjarki nodded and returned to face his men and barked orders. With the wind at our back, we hoisted our sails again to give us a speed advantage. The galleys loosened their formation to give room for their oars, giving us the room we needed to sail through. Bjarki led his ship into battle first. His men lifted their shields over their shoulders and steered themselves at full sail between two galleys. Their ship thundered as it dashed through the narrow space between the Moorish ships and broke dozens of their oars. A swarm of arrows clattered across Oak Raven’s deck. Halfway through the gap, the galley oars halted Oak Raven. Bjarki’s men dropped the sail and threw hooks at the ship in the center and pulled themselves close enough to board her.

“Shields up!” I commanded as Sail Horse charged at a gallop to do the same on the other side.

We crashed through oars, took two volleys of arrows, and hooked ourselves to the center ship as Bjarki had done. An arrow had found its way through our shields and pierced someone’s flesh, spattering the deck beside me with hot red blood. I followed the trail to see who had taken the hit. It led to my leg. I marveled at it, wondering why I had not felt its sting. Its iron head had passed clean through and struck far enough away from the groin that I did not fear bleeding out. So long as I left it in place, I could still fight.

I unsheathed my sword, brandished it over my head, and cried out, “With me!”

I leaped over the gunwale onto the enemy deck. They met me with spears, pole blades, and curved swords. My shield repelled them long enough for my men to leap aboard and force them back. Bjarki’s men had already cut their way through half the ship, swarming the Moorish fighting men like enraged bees. My men pressed forward and met our allies in the middle.

Where our ships had a single deck, galleys had two. They housed their fighting men on the top deck, and below, slaves powered their oars. Once we had cleared the top deck, I felt confident we had eliminated the threat. Slaves do not raid on their own accord. But they would make a good prize for us. We would be able to convince many to settle on the island—our salt farms needed the extra hands.

“Where is Ake?” Bjarki asked.

Ake’s ship had not kept pace with us. He had steered around in too broad a circle, and one of the galleys had maneuvered to aim its bronze ram at Riveted Serpent. How he had allowed it to happen, I am not certain. Before the Moors could catch him, his sail filled, and he dashed out of danger. At that moment, my leg started to ache.

“Damn,” I muttered.

“Damn is right,” Bjarki said. “Ake is too old and slow. I told you, Hasting. I told you.”

One of our men interrupted us, pointing in the opposite direction. “My king, look!”

The third galley rowed at full speed toward us—toward Oak Raven. Bjarki had no time at all to take his ship to safety. The galley’s ram split her in half, splintering her laps into a million shards. Though it had wrecked Oak Raven, the enemy ship’s momentum sent its ram crashing into the ship’s hull we had captured. The whole of it rocked to the side as the Moorish ram punched a hole in the lower deck, sending us all tumbling over toward the gunwale.

“Back to my ship!” I cried out.

Our men clawed and crawled across the rocking deck to reach Sail Horse. As we did, the Moors threw large clay jars at us, which broke and covered the galley’s deck and some of our men in an oily tincture. A flaming arrow flew overhead and struck where their jars had landed, setting the whole thing ablaze. The fire swallowed dozens of our men. The slaves below deck were doomed. I had seen this before when we had fought the Moors in Spain. They had called it Greek fire, and no amount of water would put it out.

We piled upon Sail Horse, filling her deck to the brim. My men took to the oars, and we cast off with haste, raising our sail to catch the wind. As we moved northward, we pulled as many of Bjarki’s men as possible out of the water. Those who could swim had tried to make for Sail Horse, and those who could not, drowned. The last man we pulled from the water was, to my relief, Bjarki’s son Bíldr.

“Sail north to lead them away from the village,” I commanded. “Ake will follow us.”

Bíldr took the steering paddle. He was a tall young man with long auburn hair, broad shoulders, and a square chin. He had proven himself a formidable, loyal warrior in our last battle with Moorish raiders. He had courage, grit, and strength, and he did not panic under pressure—all the qualities of a leader.

Sail Horse glided out of the fray ahead of the two galleys. We could not hope to beat them without regrouping with Ake’s ship. He had meandered off westward, chased by the Moorish galley that had almost cleaved his boat in half. We kept the wind at our back and forced the third galley to give chase. Galleys could not hope to keep pace with us. Once the men had settled in, I stood at the prow to address them. They needed me to say something. Morale was clearly low. Even I felt the pang of defeat, which I had not known in a long, long time.

As I opened my mouth to speak, I felt a sudden queasiness, and the world spun around me. My leg ached. Somewhere in the thick of battle, the arrow’s shaft had broken in half, causing me to bleed more than I had expected. The blue sky turned red, red blood turned blue, and for as much as I tried to hold onto the prow, I crumbled.

I did not awaken in Valhalla. Nor would I have wanted to. I instead awoke on a cot in Bjarki’s house. It was a modest single-chamber home with wattle and daub walls under a steep-pitched thatch roof that formed a spacious vault. My men had taken good care of me. They had pulled the remaining arrow shaft from my leg, washed the wound with seawater, and tied it off to stop the bleeding. Someone—I presumed Bjarki’s wife—had sewn the wound shut with horsehair and covered it in ointment. Where I might have expected to awaken in my own quarters, I instead lay in this empty room. It made me fearful of what had transpired after I had lost consciousness.

Not one to wait for fate to find me, I dragged myself to my feet and hobbled to the front door. Whoever had passed through it last had not latched it nor closed it all the way. It was careless. I pushed the door open to find the village crawling with warriors in long, red overcoats over light maille shirts, iron conical helmets with visored eyes, and some with leather shin guards and bracers. They were Danes.

“Hasting!” Bjarki approached me from around the side of his house. “Thank the gods, we were worried.”

“Why was I in your house?” I asked.

“Eh… I don’t think I’m the one who should answer that,” he said.

Between his words, a group of Danes lumbered past us with crates in their arms, telling jokes and laughing. They deposited their wares by the large firepit in the central courtyard of my village.

I rubbed my eyes and said, “What in god’s name is happening?”

“You won’t believe it.” Bjarki grinned.

He looked over his shoulder, drawing my gaze to a tall blond man in delicate blue and gold silk robes who was sauntering in our direction. I knew him. It was my best friend, Bjorn.

“Well met, Hasting!” Bjorn called out as he strolled up to us. He paused an arm’s length away from me and tilted his head, smiling. He pointed at my midsection, which had grown since the last time we’d seen each other. “Enjoying the excesses of retirement, I see!”

I grabbed at one of his sleeves of rich fabric and said, “You as well, I see.”

He laughed. “Mine comes off.”

I scowled and turned to Bjarki for support. Bjarki held up his hands and shrugged.

“You’re not that fat.” Bjorn patted me on the shoulder. “One good expedition and you’ll be back to your old self. Do you like the robes? I bought them in Gotland.” He twisted around to show us the back.

“Good to see you, old friend.” His pride in his new clothes made me laugh.

Bjorn took my hand and pulled me in for an embrace. The act put me off balance, and I winced in pain from putting too much weight on my injured leg.

“Apologies,” he said. “How is the pain?”

“Tolerable.”

“It’s a good thing we found you when we did.” He wiped off his robes as if his embrace with me had soiled them.

I looked at Bjarki, who nodded in agreement. When he realized I was still staring at him, he cleared his throat and said, “We sailed north as you had asked, and as luck would have it, we met Bjorn’s fleet sailing around the island’s north side. They chased off the Moorish pirates for us, and I invited them here.” He leaned in and feigned a whisper, “That is to say, he invited himself, and I agreed.”

“You have my thanks,” I said to Bjorn.

“None required.” Bjorn shook his head.

I gave him a half smile and asked, “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

Bjorn sighed and placed his hands on his hips. “Can we talk business later? We haven’t seen each other in two years. At least introduce me to your wife.”

“Oh, yes, my wife,” I groaned.

Bjorn raised his eyebrows and said, “All is not well in Hasting’s kingdom?”

“She and I have a hard time seeing eye to eye.”

“Takes after her father, does she?” Bjorn asked.

I sighed and wiped my forehead with my sleeve. Turning toward my great hall, which Reifdis’ men had built with local maritime pine trees and the hull of a longship for the roof, I cracked my knuckles with apprehension. My home had not felt like a home in some time.

“She has rigid expectations of me that make my life difficult—duties, rituals, chores, and since I did not grow up among our kin, I have trouble keeping up,” I explained.

Bjorn looked me up and down, grinned, and crossed his arms. “She’s got you wrapped around her finger tighter than the Norns’ skeen, it sounds like.”

Bjarki laughed, which he swallowed as soon as I glared at him.

“I am no such thing,” I growled.

Bjorn raised his hands and said, “I meant no offense.”

“Follow me,” I said. “I shall welcome you to my home. You have arrived on a blessed day. My firstborn is due to arrive.”

“That was two days ago,” Bjarki interjected.
“What?” I was stunned into silence for a moment. “Is it…?”

“A boy,” Bjarki said.

“My firstborn,” I mumbled, half smiling to myself, “a son.”

“Congratulations, Hasting.” Bjorn grinned at me.

“Come,” I said. “Let me show you into my hall. This calls for a feast.”

Bjorn insisted on helping me walk, and together we traversed the village so that I might see my wife and newborn son. He marveled at what we had built. My hall stood at the center of two rows of houses that formed a semicircle against the edge of a forest of thin-trunked pines. The trees protected us from the wind, the tides, and hid us from passing ships.

“I thought to find you at the monastery on the eastern shore,” Bjorn said.

“That’s why I’m not there.”

The island’s monastery attracted Vikings as honey lures a bear. I had tried to make it my hall, but it had proven too difficult to defend. So I moved our people to a part of the island that marauding Danes, Celts, and Franks would not think to rive. Unfortunately, this side of the island put us in the path of less frequent but still deadly Moorish raiders. We had also moved the Celtic village that housed the salt farmers inland to avoid losing them to an opportunistic sea captain.

“And you built all this in two years?” Bjorn said with wonder.

“I had help.”

Bjorn paused at the front double doors of my hall, and he ran his hand across the muzzles of wolves wrought by our master woodworker Sig. He had carved a rich tapestry of beasts into the doors, including bears, foxes, stags, boars, ravens, eagles, and even some rats. I still wondered about the rats.

“Beautiful, aren’t they?” I said.

“Masterful,” Bjorn voiced. “Like home.”

“Perhaps I can leave you to admire them while I check on my wife?” I suggested.

“Please,” Bjorn said, urging me to continue without him.

As I limped through the feasting area, past the ornately carved pillars Sig had made that held up our roof and around the dais partition in the back where we had walled off our bedchamber, I noticed several of Ake’s men keeping watch. They moved to meet me but did not stop me from pushing through. I lifted the latch and opened the door to find my wife sleeping on a cloud of pillows and furs, and her midwife humming a lullaby at her bedside. The midwife beckoned me to approach without breaking her song. She pulled back the corner of a clean white linen blanket to reveal the tiny head of a newborn baby. He looked like me.

Words cannot describe seeing one’s child for the first time. It must be lived. But I can say my life changed at that moment. I touched his soft little head, and I felt overwhelmed with want for that boy to have everything I never had—a loving mother, an honorable father, a doting family and community, and a chance to become a better man than me. And I had those things to give him, or so I thought. I had wealth, land, power, loyal followers, and a woman with a good name to raise him. Reifdis opened her eyes, and her eyes narrowed at seeing me.

“You’re alive,” she muttered.

“Not the first arrow I’ve taken to the leg,” I said.

She sighed, pressing two fingers against the bridge of her nose. “Is that friend of yours still here?”

“Bjorn?” I chuckled and said, “He found me. I will treat him to a feast tonight.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“I must,” I insisted.

“You and Bjarki will end up drinking yourselves into a stupor again,” she groaned.

I scowled and clasped my hands. No enemy was near, and yet my heart was pounding. She had never approved that I’d started drinking again. “Is that what this is all about?”

“It’s embarrassing, Hasting. You talk so much about reputation, but how you’ve acted since Paris has made you a laughingstock in our village and among our allies.”

“You offend me,” I growled.

Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. She looked away to hold them back. “Get out.”

I clenched both my fists and hovered over her for a moment with rage and frustration in my heart. Rather than press the issue, I returned to the feasting tables and found Bjorn examining the posts that held up our roof. Sig had also carved them full of animal figures, from the floor to the trusses, and painted several of them in earthy colors.

“I’ve always admired those who can carve such likenesses into wood,” Bjorn said.

“It’s a talent,” I muttered.

Bjorn shot me an inquisitive look. “So what did she say? Shall we celebrate?”

“She needs her rest,” I explained. “But you and I, old friend, shall make this a night to remember.”

Bjarki burst through the double doors, holding two horns filled to the brim with mead that I presumed Bjorn had brought us. Two of Ake’s men rushed to stop him from entering and blocked his path. Undeterred, he pushed through. He limped to us, spilling liquid gold onto the ashen floor, singing an old sailor’s song I had not heard before. Bjorn and I each had a horn thrust against our chest.

The door to the bedchamber lurched open, and Reifdis’ midwife gave a powerful shush. Bjarki recoiled. She was an Irish woman named Clíona, his third wife, and he feared her wrath more than the gods. She had coarse red hair like him, and while I would have loved to have seen the children they would have produced, the two had met and married too old.

“We should take this outside,” I said.

“Agreed,” Bjorn said.

I led my guest out of the hall and into the center of the village, where we had dug a large firepit for outdoor gatherings. We did not need a fire that day. The afternoon sun kept us warm, and the wind had not picked up yet. Since the autumn season, we had lived under constant rain and wind. What a relief that the sun had decided to show itself. Bjarki filled his own horn full of mead from a nearby barrel, and together we raised them above our heads, wished each other good health, and drank.

“Haven’t had good mead in months.” Bjarki smiled ear to ear. “All they have in these parts is red wine, and it doesn’t sit as well with my stomach.”

Bjarki had his men bring up barrels of wine for Bjorn’s men to drink—while he enjoyed their mead—and baskets of bread, cheeses, and salted herring for us to eat. Bjorn had invited two dozen of his most trusted followers from his camp, who gathered around us while a dozen or so of our warriors, all of them Bjarki’s men, joined us in lively banter. Conspicuously, all of Ake’s men and even Ake himself had returned to their homes.

“Ake isn’t in the mood for celebrating, I take it?” I asked Bjarki.

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Bjarki said.

The two had never much liked one another. Bjarki had an insatiable thirst for all of life’s pleasures and enjoyed them when he could, whereas Ake believed above all in hard work and restraint. He was almost Christian in that way. Still, I wondered about Ake’s absence.

As the night wore on, Bjorn brought forth his skald—since we had none—who told stories of the deeds of his father, brothers, and me. My men had all heard the stories, but Bjorn’s had not. Most of them looked almost too young, freshly picked from their farms back home for a chance to make a name for themselves with the likes of the infamous Bjorn Ironsides and Hasting the Avenger. It felt good to be praised for my deeds for once. I had not heard them spoken in such a light in quite some time. Everything changed, however, when Bjorn’s skald recounted my meeting with King Charles to negotiate the sum we would accept to return the city of Paris to him.

“And so it was that Ragnar, son of Sigurd, asked for and received a payment of seven thousand pounds of silver,” the skald recounted.

I spat out my mead. “What?”

Bjarki recoiled and said, “Oh, shit.”

By that time, I had drunk more mead than I cared to remember. My shoulders swayed, my speech slurred, and my anger spilled forth like a frothing tide.

“It is the story of how Ragnar brokered the deal with the Franks that—” the skald attempted to say.

“Ragnar brokered nothing,” I roared.

“Please, brother, you needn’t be so angry,” Bjorn pleaded.

I drew my sword and charged at the skald, saying, “I will have your head for spreading such lies!”

Before I could reach him, something—or someone—tripped me. I fell forward, smashing my shoulder into the sandy ground beneath me. Bjarki leaped to my side to hold me down while Bjorn and his men snuck the skald out of sight. As I rolled on the ground, swinging my arms and kicking my legs, I continued to shout: “He stole my glory! He stole my reputation!”

Bjorn kneeled over me, helping Bjarki to hold me down, and said, “It was an honest mistake, Hasting. You’re right; my father did not take Paris. You did. I do not know why the skald thought otherwise.”

“You heard him, Hasting. It was a mistake,” Bjarki repeated.

Despite their reassurance, my anger continued to boil over, propelled by years of resentment and jealousy over what had happened in the wake of our conquering of Paris.

I pounded the ground and tried to break free of their hold, but eventually I tired and calmed down. Bjarki and Bjorn sat me up, keeping close to me in case I had another outburst. As I wiped the sand off my face, my eyes met with an unfortunate sight. Reifdis had heard the commotion and come out of our hall with Ake and several warriors beside her to investigate. Her nose wrinkled over flared nostrils, and her lip curled into a snarl of disgust.

“I asked you not to drink tonight,” she said in a muted tone.

“You asked that I not drink too much,” I said, pointing at the air with my forefinger.

“And here you are.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“I can hear it in your voice. You are drunk! And look around you. Have you no shame? Some honorable warrior you are, rolling your drunken face in the sand. I’m embarrassed. Not just for you. For me. For our son. For those who follow us. You are a níð, and you have no honor,” she said.

When she said the word níð, several men gasped. It was a term I did not know well, but I knew that being called one was serious. The last person I had known who had been called by that name had been exiled by his kin. My heart pounded. In an instant, the fog of mead cleared. With Bjarki’s help, I regained my feet.

“How dare you accuse me of such a thing,” I growled. “I am Hasting, slayer of Hagar, Ragnar, and Renaud, conqueror of Nantes, Seville, and Paris, scourge of the Somme and Loire, and for once, I command you to give me the respect and loyalty my reputation affords.”

I took two steps toward her, which triggered Ake and his men to draw and brandish their weapons. Bjorn and Bjarki stepped in front of me, drawing their own weapons.

“Let’s be reasonable here,” Bjorn said. “We did not come here to fight anyone.”

“Our quarrel is not with you, Bjorn Ironsides,” Ake said.

“A quarrel with Hasting is a quarrel with me. He has my oath,” Bjorn said.

“Stop it, all of you.” I shoved my way through the throng and faced my wife. “So what is this, then? Hm? Were you planning to kill me?”

Reifdis crossed her arms and said, “No. I am here to banish you. You have proved yourself a níð, and I am now exercising my right to divorce you.”

I let out a full-bellied laugh. “You have no right,” I said.

“She does, and she will,” an ominous, raspy woman said, cutting through the rest.

It was Oddlaug. She was our village’s völva, or seeress, whom Reifdis had brought as part of her household when we married. Reifdis relied on Oddlaug to communicate with the gods and divine their will. I did not believe in her powers at first. I’d had too much of a Christian education during my time with the Celts to accept such superstitions, but Oddlaug had proven on several occasions to have the gift of foresight. She had won me over, although I still regarded her craft with suspicion.

Oddlaug stepped forward from behind Ake’s men with a labored gait. She wore a long black cloak and carried a silver staff with a gnarled bulb on the tip. Her hooded eyes were painted black, with runes jutting across her cheeks, temples, and forehead, and she had let her long, straight black hair down, parted neatly in the middle, flowing over her shoulders and chest.

“A wife accuses her husband of níðing. Are there any who support her claim?” Oddlaug asked.

“I do,” Ake said. “As do all the men of her household.”

“Are there any who protest?” Oddlaug asked.

“I am sure there are,” I said with a smirk. When no one answered, I crossed my arms and turned around. “Bjorn? Bjarki?”

“I’m sorry, friend, but it’s not my place. This is not my house,” Bjorn said.

“Bjarki?” I asked.

Bjarki lowered his head. His wife was standing behind Reifdis and eyeing him. He shook his head and said, “I am sorry, my king. I will die to defend you in battle, but I fear my wife will cut off my balls if I—”

“As I thought, you coward,” Bjarki’s wife interjected with a shrill, venomous voice. “Not even enough of a spine to back your king. You are as much a nið as him. I invoke my right to divorce you, too!”

I returned to Reifdis and asked her, “Why are you doing this?”

“For our son. He deserves better,” she said.

“Reifdis, daughter of Thorgisl, you are now granted your divorce and shall retain the keys to the household,” Oddlaug said. “Hasting, you are, as a result of this, commanded by the queen of this land to leave and never to return.”

Stunned by the proclamation, I sat in the sand and wrapped my arms around my knees. Reifdis tossed her golden wedding ring at me and turned her back on me, returning to our hall with her men and shutting the doors behind her with a resounding thud. Bjorn meanwhile ordered his men to return to their camp and wait for him. Soon, it was just me and Bjarki and Bjorn sitting around the firepit in the fading light of evening. Bjarki handed me a hunk of bread and urged me to eat it. They both sat next to me in silence.

“How are you taking it?” Bjorn finally asked after a long while.

I was paralyzed with anger. Never in my life had I suffered such an insult. The beast in my heart raged. “I’ll show her. I’ll show them all. They want to give Ragnar credit for Paris? Fine. She wants to kick me out? Fine. Now, I am free to do what I want. And I want to do something so unexpected and incredible that they will rue the day they wronged me.”

“Of course, revenge,” Bjorn sighed.

“Yes, revenge! Did you not see what just happened? I am shamed beyond belief. I should march in there and kill every last one of them right now.”

“Hasting, be reasonable,” Bjarki said.

“I am being reasonable. I am saving their lives by holding myself back.”

I paused, my anger still thick in the air. But as the silence stretched out between us, I fell to thinking about what I would do next. How might I earn back the reputation and honor that had been stolen from me? When I finished chewing my piece of bread, I turned to Bjorn and touched his shoulder.

“My friend, I must apologize. I still have not asked you why you came all this way.”

Bjorn smiled and said, “I am here on a trade mission.”

“For what?” I asked.

“Your salt. I am forming a trade expedition with a new partner named Rurik in the east to Miklagard, and we need salt for the journey up the freshwater rivers.”

“Rurik?” I said with a chuckle. “Isn’t he busy in Frisia fighting off other Vikings?”

“Not that Rurik, another one,” Bjorn said. “This one is a Rus.”

“Hm. A common name, then,” I said.

“It is. There’s another one in Zealand, too. He’s insufferable, and I would not wish meeting him on my worst enemy,” Bjorn said, smiling.

“Well, if you’ve come to trade, it is not I that you will need to speak with, but my wife.”

“Indeed,” Bjorn said.

“You have my blessing to do so.” I laughed. “You came all this way.”

“Thank you,” he said.

I paused for a moment, and then asked, “What is this Miklagard?”

“It’s a city on the other side of the known world ruled by a people who call themselves the Greeks,” Bjorn explained.

“Tell me more about it,” I urged him. “Have you been there?”

“I have. It’s spectacular, really. Thick and towering walls, two or three times larger than Paris, and rows of them, and domed churches as tall as mountains,” he said.

“Sounds wealthy,” I said.

“Riches beyond measure… It is considered the largest and wealthiest city in all the world. Why are you grinning at me?”

“I never took you for a simple merchant,” I said.

“Damn it, Hasting, I know what you’re thinking,” Bjarki blurted out.

“What’s he thinking?” Bjorn asked.

“He’s going to ask you to help him conquer it,” Bjarki said.

“Oh, no, impossible,” Bjorn said. “It would take a fleet of at least one thousand ships, and even then, getting them there… it’s too far.”

“We’ll find a way,” I said. “My name still carries weight in the North. When men hear that I am planning to take a fleet to Miklagard, they will flock to me as they flocked to me to take Paris.”

“I do not doubt they would, but hear me out, Hasting. Miklagard is impregnable,” Bjorn said.

“That’s what they said about Nantes and Paris. Bjorn, my friend, my brother, this is it. This is what I need to restore my reputation. Will you help me? Will you sail with me once more—to victory?”

Bjorn stood up and helped me to my feet, saying, “My oath to you remains unchanged. If you ask me to do this with you, I will.”

“Then let us commit here and now to gather the greatest fleet our people have ever known, and to take it to Miklagard—to glory!”

“Yes, to glory!” Bjarki echoed.

“There’s one issue, and that is my partner Rurik. He will need to be convinced,” Bjorn said.

“We will convince him together. Bjorn, you said you needed the salt. Tomorrow, take as much as you can and return east. I will sail to spread the word and recruit and join you there. Where are you launching from?”

“It is called Grobina.”

“I know where that is,” Bjarki said.

Bjorn laughed. “You’re full of surprises.”

“I can count on you to follow me, then, Bjarki?” I asked.

“Yes, my king,” he said. “To the edge of Miðgard.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “I am glad you are with me. Gather up the men who wish to join us—I am sure there are a number of them—and prepare Sail Horse. We leave tomorrow at first light.”

“Where are you going?” Bjarki shouted as I hurried away from them.

“There’s someone I need to speak with before we leave.”

I ventured into the forest behind the village along a beaten path to a hut nestled in a thick grove of blackberry and raspberry bushes whose seeds Oddlaug had sewn when she first arrived. She must have heard my footsteps, for she emerged from her hut to greet me the moment I stepped foot in her clearing. She wore a smile under a sunken brow. The way she carried herself made her seem old, but she had a healthy body, if not shapely, and few wrinkles on her face. Had she not disfigured herself with tattoos, I might have found her beautiful.

“A rotten thing you did to me back there,” I said.

“A necessity,” she retorted. “Reifdis left you a long time ago. It took seeing her son for the first time to realize it.”

“It doesn’t seem fair that she can simply cast me out. I would have made a good father,” I said.

“Would you?” she asked, amusement tugging at her lip.

“I would.”

She approached me with leering eyes, and one of her hands found its way to my groin as she pressed herself against me. Her lips hovered over my ear as she said, “Is that what you were thinking when you lay with me while your wife was pregnant?”

I shoved her away and took two steps back. Oddlaug circled me, and I matched her, keeping my distance. She held up the skirt of her dress and cloak above the dirt.

“You seduced me,” I said.

“You were begging to be seduced,” she said in a sensual whisper.

“You took advantage of my weakness,” I insisted.

“You offered your weakness to me on a platter, begging me to have a taste. Your hunger, your drive, bound by the shackles of marriage, and you could not help but unleash the conqueror within, if only for a moment. Do not blame me for your troubles—it was all your doing.”

“But the divorce was your doing,” I spat. “You turned them against me.”

“You did that yourself. Reifdis sought me out to affirm her right to a divorce. She decided it all on her own.”

“What games are you playing? Did you want me for yourself all along?”

Oddlaug cackled and said, “You think so highly of yourself. Of course you would think this was all to seduce you once more. I have no such desire. You repulse me.”

I put my hands on my hips and exclaimed, “Repulse?” We both stopped in our tracks, staring each other down, eye to eye. I wanted to lash out in anger, but I instead bit my tongue. “I did not come here for this.”

“No, you want me to cast the runes for you, don’t you?”

I chuckled and replied, “Clearly.”

“I already did,” she said.

“And?”

“I know you have doubted my abilities, so I will spare you all I have seen. What I will tell you is you are about to embark on a long, long journey, Hasting. The gods have much in store for you.”

“I set sail at first light,” I said, scowling.

“Then events that cannot be undone have been set into motion. What I have for you is this warning: beware not to overstep your bounds, for the gods are unforgiving to mortals who reach too high.”

“I have heard this before.”

Oddlaug took my hand. As she held it in hers and ran her fingers along the lines of my palms, she uttered words I did not understand. She had a convincing way about her.

“Yes, yes. Your fate is an interesting one,” she muttered. “Stay here.”

She returned to her hut and rummaged about while I waited outside. She made odd sounds when she thought she had found something and even odder ones when she realized she had not. Finally, she reemerged, holding a silver ring fashioned in the likeness of a wolf’s head. She held it up to the last glimmers of daylight.

“You confided in me once that the wolf Fenrir haunts your dreams. You have thought yourself hunted by him, tormented, even,” she said.

“He came to me when I was a boy and has followed me since,” I said. “He has been a burden on me.”

I’d had a vision of the Great Wolf when I was a boy. A storm overtook our ship, and I was thrown overboard. Drowning beneath the surface of the waves, I saw the wolf stalking our ship—stalking me. One of our crew managed to pull me back onboard, and when I told him what I had seen, he said that I had been cursed. The vision followed me and reappeared in my dreams at the most critical times of my life. It was an untamable beast that had driven me to fell deeds. I had confided the visions in Oddlaug, who assured me their purpose would soon be revealed.

“I do not see him as you do,” Oddlaug continued. “It is foretold that he will devour the Allfather, and nothing can stop him. He is the relentlessness of fate embodied, the harbinger of destiny, which none of us can escape. To resist the wolf, as you have, is to resist fate. And resisting fate has made you fearful, selfish, and wicked. The gods do not accept you in that form. They will test you until you have learned to be courageous, humble, honorable… and loving.”

I snarled, “Selfish and wicked?”

“I made this ring for you. The wolf is not a curse. He is a gift. He reminds you that struggling against your fate is like rowing against a fierce wind. When you have learned this lesson, you will find your way to the home you were meant to have.”

I took the ring and put it on the last finger of my left hand. Oddlaug caressed my face before slinking back into her hut. Her words gave me a fear I had not felt in many years. I shrugged it off, yet it lingered in my belly as I returned to the village.

Bjarki met me on his way back from the beach.

“What did she say?” he asked.

“She gave me this.” I showed him the ring.

“Is that what I think it is?” he asked.

“It is.”

“Völvas.” He laughed. “Just when you think you have life figured out, they swoop in like a seagull and shit all over it.”

And shit all over it, she had. We prepared Sail Horse to launch the following morning, filling her with supplies and ensuring she had no defects that might hinder our voyage. Volunteers started to appear from the village and beyond, having heard Bjarki’s call for men to join me.

As we packed crates into the ship together, Bjarki asked, “Where to first on this mad journey to Miklagard?”

“You might think it odd, but first, I thought we’d pay Salomon a visit,” I said.

“Salomon? What for?” Bjarki asked.

“Reifdis may have kicked me out, but she still has my son. I want to let him know what’s happened and make certain he upholds the legitimacy of the land charter.”

“Makes sense,” Bjarki said.

“After that, we’ll sail north and begin recruiting, starting with Magnus,” I said.

“And let fate guide our path,” Bjarki said.

Once we had her loaded, we settled in with a makeshift tent on the ship’s deck, where we planned to sleep. Without Reifdis to scold me, I spent the first hours of darkness drinking with Bjarki until I fell asleep. As I drifted off into the nothingness of a dreamless, drunken slumber, I stewed over what had transpired that day, and I resolved to myself that I would conquer Miklagard and restore my name to its rightful place as the most famous Viking of them all. I even chuckled out loud at the thought of returning to my island with all the riches of the Great City… and rub it in Reifdis’ face.

The following morning, with a pounding head and ache in my heart, I bid farewell to Bjorn, promising to meet him at Grobina before the winter, and we set sail.

READ MORE!

Vikings and Valkyries: When the Wolf Comes to Life

Introducing Vikings and Valkyries: When the Wolf Comes to Life

Fellow adventurers and saga-seekers, I am thrilled to announce my latest creative venture: Vikings and Valkyries, a live-action role-playing game podcast that melds the grandiosity of Norse myth with the rich storytelling of Ian Stuart Sharpe’s When the Wolf Comes. Imagine the captivating drama of Critical Role, but instead of the world of Exandria, we embark into the Vikingverse—a parallel timeline where the Norse gods still reign, and their people have ascended to the stars.

Helming this journey is none other than Ian Stuart Sharpe himself, the creator of When the Wolf Comes and our masterful game master. With his encyclopedic knowledge of Norse mythology and razor-sharp wit, Ian crafts a saga that is as enthralling as it is unpredictable. Under his guidance, we navigate the apocalyptic twilight of the Vikingverse, where every choice feels monumental, and every encounter teems with peril and opportunity.

In this epic saga, I have the honor of embodying Grjotgarð the Magnificent, a flamboyant Jöfurr whose larger-than-life personality is a cross between Lazlo Cravensworth’s eccentric vampiric charm and Zaphod Beeblebrox’s galaxy-sized ego. Grjotgarð isn’t just a leader; he’s a spectacle, a schemer, and a peacock in the most literal sense.

What Is When the Wolf Comes?

If you’re new to this world, let me set the stage. When the Wolf Comes takes place in a Vikingverse where Ragnarök is an ever-looming shadow, threatening to unravel the cosmos. Players adopt roles as heroes—or anti-heroes—struggling to carve their destinies amidst gods, machines, and the enigmatic Yggdrasil, a sentient World Tree. The game blends traditional Norse mythology with science fiction, creating a world where ancient traditions clash with futuristic technology in an apocalyptic saga of fate and survival.

At its heart, When the Wolf Comes is about wrestling with the inexorable pull of fate, crafting tales of courage, tragedy, and triumph. The game’s mechanics encourage deep roleplay, collaborative storytelling, and moments of moral ambiguity—perfect for a podcast designed to entertain, provoke thought, and immerse listeners in a world of infinite narrative possibilities.

Meet Grjotgarð the Magnificent

Grjotgarð is not your average Jöfurr. While most of his kin are known for their stoic honor and resolute leadership, Grjotgarð takes the path less traveled—or more accurately, the path most flamboyantly danced upon. Towering over most mortals (and some Jötnar), he is so massive that no horse can bear his weight, a fact he compensates for with a peacock-worthy wardrobe that ensures his entrance is always unforgettable.

Though he has no formal profession, Grjotgarð’s education is impeccable, and his tongue as sharp as his wit. A paragon of contradiction, he is equal parts intellectual and jester, delivering philosophical musings with the same gusto as he does his dramatic proclamations.

Grjotgarð’s crowning achievement (in his eyes) is winning the silver medal in the Toga Honk (Viking tug-o-war) at the All-Asgard Games. Though his second-place finish was technically marred by what some called "excessive preening," Grjotgarð himself prefers to attribute it to an unfair alignment of the Norns’ threads.

Grjotgarð the Magnificent’s journey begins (in episode 3) with a mission of utmost importance—or so he insists. He seeks a rogue Dvergar automaton rumored to contain information that, if revealed, could wreak havoc on... certain delicate matters of legacy. Enlisting the help of Err and Lomi, who claim to know the droid’s whereabouts, Grjotgarð’s plans are derailed when the trio is cursed by a mysterious Jötnar woman. Now bound by misfortune, they must uncover who ordered the curse—and why—all while Grjotgarð remains suspiciously vague about his true motives, deflecting questions with theatrical flair and dramatic sighs.

The character is a joy to play, blending the theatrical flair of Lazlo Cravensworth (What We Do in the Shadows) with the audacious confidence of Zaphod Beeblebrox (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Beneath the feathers and bravado lies a genuine desire to protect and uplift his companions—though naturally, he prefers they thank him in sonnets and sagas afterward.

Meet the Cast of Vikings & Valkyries

Sound the Gjallarhorn! The epic saga of Vikings & Valkyries has arrived, bringing together a dynamic cast of creators, historians, and storytellers. Each week, a revolving band of adventurers takes up their battle rifles and ventures across the World’s Edge, exploring the Thought & Memory Saga. With a mix of wit, grit, and occasional chaos, the choosers of the fallen (and their dice rolls) decide the fate of our ever-changing cast.

Music by: Table Top Audio

The Core Crew:

Bill Hopkins (MagicLudi): A professional GM-for-hire on StartPlaying, Bill brings a wealth of experience to the table, running immersive campaigns with flair. You can find him on Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube to sample his style.

Steve Madill: A prolific science fiction and fantasy author, Steve has penned over a dozen books spanning three captivating series.

C.J. Adrien: An award-winning author of Viking historical fiction and co-host of the popular Vikingology podcast. Known for weaving history and myth with engaging narratives, C.J. takes the Vikingverse to new heights.

Special Guest Stars:

J and his bandmates in Oba, who just dropped their debut single Could Have. Check it out on YouTube and Spotify.

Mike Foucher: The mastermind behind Shift, an app-integrated power browser that changes the game.

Joseph Aleo: Creator of the epic Vikings vs Samurai comic series, where legends clash in a battle for supremacy.

Joshua Gillingham: Fantasy author, game designer, and editor of the acclaimed trilogy The Saga of Torin Ten-Trees and the Althingi game.

Rebecca Hill: A dedicated Norse enthusiast, book blogger, and YouTuber with her channel Valhalla Conversations.

Sam Flegal: The creative force behind Fateful Signs, a collection of stunning Norse illustrations.

Jordan Stratford: Producer, author, and screenwriter celebrated for the Wollstonecraft Detective Agency series.

Each member of this ensemble brings their own perspective and talents, enriching the Vikings & Valkyries experience with humor, drama, and mythic storytelling. Join us on this saga as we explore the Vikingverse together—where heroes are forged, legends are made, and only the bold survive.

Why a Podcast?

The medium of a live-action role-playing podcast allows us to bring this rich setting to life in a way that’s both intimate and expansive. The collaborative storytelling format lets the personalities of the players shine, while the episodic nature ensures a steady stream of cliffhangers, character growth, and dramatic encounters.

Through Vikings and Valkyries, Ian Stuart Sharpe orchestrates a world alive with gods, monsters, and star-faring Vikings. Together, we aim to transport listeners into the Vikingverse, where every decision ripples across the Nine Worlds. Will we stave off Ragnarök, or will our hubris hasten its arrival? The only certainty is that the path will be paved with glory, sacrifice, and the occasional ill-advised drinking contest.

Why Listen?

If you’ve ever been captivated by the sagas of old or the theatrical storytelling of shows like Critical Role, Vikings and Valkyries promises to deliver an experience worthy of the mead halls of Valhalla. Whether you’re a seasoned gamer or new to role-playing, there’s something for everyone: intricate plots, dynamic characters, and a hearty dose of humor. Available everywhere podcasts are.

And, of course, there’s Grjotgarð—Magnificent by name, magnificent by nature.

Listen to Vikings and Valkyries

The Vikings: An English Teacher’s Worst Nightmare?

Have you ever wondered why the English language seems to delight in breaking its own rules? It’s a puzzle that leaves both parents and teachers scratching their heads, while children often find themselves unsatisfied with the explanations they receive. As we delve deeper into the fascinating history of the English language, a surprising revelation emerges: the Vikings, those fierce warriors from Scandinavia that have modern popular culture enraptured, did far more than raid, pillage, and steal women. They also turned the English language on its head.

The Vikings: A Linguistic Tasmanian Devil

Picture this: it’s the 8th Century A.D., and the Vikings, known for their daring voyages and plundering ways, set foot on the British Isles. What began as opportunistic raids soon turned into something more transformative. The Vikings gradually shifted their focus from pillaging to conquering, establishing dominance over a substantial portion of England. This period, known as the Danelaw, witnessed the widespread application of Norse laws to the local population. Remarkably, remnants of these laws can still be found in remote areas today. But the Vikings didn’t just leave their mark through their conquests; they also imparted their language upon the inhabitants of the British Isles.

The Vikings, hailing primarily from Norway and Denmark, introduced their linguistic traditions to the English-speaking populace, creating a melting pot of words and expressions. As a result, the roots of modern English began intertwining with Norse influences, forever altering the linguistic landscape. Moreover, the Vikings etched their names into the fabric of the British Isles through the distinctive place names they bestowed upon the land.

French-Speaking “Former Vikings” Turn the Language On Its Head

In the year 1066 A.D., a new chapter unfolded in the saga of the English language. The Normans, descendants of the Vikings who had settled in a region called Normandy in France, launched an audacious invasion of England. Led by the renowned warlord William the Conqueror, the Normans brought a strict legal code known as Norman Law, executed in the French language. The French tongue introduced many new words and an entirely different grammatical structure to English. However, the Normans’ need to establish legitimacy among their subjects was what set the Norman conquest apart. To achieve this, they swiftly learned the local language, just as they had done with French. Within a few generations, a unique language emerged from this linguistic fusion.

The impact of these conquests reverberates through the English language to this day. Multiple words sprouted for the same objects and concepts, offering speakers a range of options for expressing themselves. Take, for instance, the humble pig. In its farming state, it was called “pig” or “swine” in the Anglo-Saxon tongue. Yet, once transformed into a savory dish, it assumed the name “pork,” borrowed from the French word “porc.” This linguistic phenomenon extended to numerous other examples, such as “chicken” and “poultry,” “deer” and “venison,” “snail” and “escargot,” and “sheep” and “mutton.” The Normans’ societal position resulted in French-rooted words becoming associated with the upper class. At the same time, Anglo-Saxon terms remained linked to the lower class. Consequently, the usage of fancier words in English often leans toward their French origins, although exceptions exist.

Not only did the Vikings and Normans introduce new vocabulary, but they also left an indelible mark on English grammar. The amalgamation of the more Germanic Anglo-Saxon language with the Latin-based French gave rise to the quirky grammatical exceptions that torment students today. At the close of the Middle Ages, a transformative event called the Great Vowel Shift occurred, bringing about further disparities in spelling and pronunciation.

But, Where There Are Challenges, There Are Also Opportunities

English, with its intricate tapestry of influences, presents an intriguing challenge. Yet, within this challenge lies its greatest strength. Its adaptability and flexibility make it one of the most versatile languages in the world. This malleability has allowed major industries, such as technology and science, to forge new vocabularies to describe their groundbreaking innovations. We owe a debt of gratitude to the Vikings for their part in shaping this linguistic wonder that we call English.

Where Did the Greenland Norse Get Their Timber? A New Study Points to North America.

Icelandic archaeologist Lísabet Guðmundsdóttir from the University of Reykjavik Has Found Evidence the Greenland Norse Imported Timber from North America.

Introduction: The Search for Timber in Viking Settlements

In 985 AD, the first settlers from Scandinavia arrived in Greenland, as told in the Saga of Erik the Red and other historical sources. These settlements, located on Greenland’s east and west coasts, endured harsh living conditions until they eventually disappeared around the 15th century. One of the biggest challenges the settlers faced was finding suitable timber for building houses and boats. According to the 13th-century Norwegian text Kongespeilet (King’s mirror), all iron and wood had to be imported to Greenland.

Investigating Timber Origins in Greenland’s Settlements

Icelandic archaeologist Lísabet Guðmundsdóttir from the University of Reykjavik sought to answer the question of where the Greenlanders got their timber by examining wood samples from various well-known settlements in Greenland. The study, published in the journal Antiquity, focused on sites such as Gården under Sandet (the farm beneath the sand) and the Eastern Settlement. The results confirmed that timber was imported from Norway, Northern Europe, and North America.

CONTINUE READING ON SUBSTACK

How Salt May Have Motivated the Vikings’ Westward Raids

Introduction To How Salt May Have Motivated the Vikings’ Westward Raids

Theories abound on what may have caused the Viking Age. From economic causes to social and political ones, historians and archeologists worldwide have put a great deal of energy into answering the question of why the Viking Age began. One of those theories centers on the idea that the Vikings left home in search of specific resources, such as enslaved people, wine, and salt, to remain competitive in a shifting economic landscape at home. No one argues that acquiring portable wealth–defined as easily transportable goods of value–was the end goal of those who left Scandinavia to rove in the early Viking Age. What is less clear is what kinds of portable wealth they valued the most and how much certain kinds of portable wealth might have motivated them to take the risk of sailing to faraway places to acquire it.

The Salt Hypothesis proposes that the Vikings’ early westward expansion–defined as the first thirty or so years of Viking activity in Western France and the British Isles–was driven mainly by one particular form of wealth that motivated them to travel farther and take greater risks than the others. As the title suggests, that form of portable wealth was salt. Unlike silver, enslaved people, and wine, which the Vikings could acquire closer to home, high-quality salt had to be acquired in southwestern France since the inland salt mines at Saltzburg were unattainable due to the Carolingian embargo on trade with Scandinavia.

In the following article, I will lay out the case for salt as a motivating factor for the westward diaspora. I will start by establishing the Viking Age Scandinavian need for, and lack of access to, salt. I will then explore the not-so-coincidental correlation between the Vikings’ earliest raids and the monastic trade networks present in France and the British Isles. Finally, I will discuss new research on establishing the herring trade in the baltic states that has breathed new life into the Salt Hypothesis and bring all the research into a cohesive narrative of salt’s role in the genesis of the so-called Viking Age.

As a former school teacher, I feel compelled to provide the following disclaimer for this article: This is not an academic paper; it’s a blog. While the material will feel academic (because I do publish academic papers) and is inspired by academic research, this article is meant for public consumption and entertainment. If you are a high school or college student looking to cite some of the material in this article, please get in touch with me first so I can help you with the material and citations you are looking to use. Those of you looking to dive deeper into this topic will find the bulk of my citations for my research in my selected bibliography.

History of The Salt Hypothesis

Around 1946, the salt producers of the island of Noirmoutier in France went bankrupt. Soon, the entire industry collapsed. Today, that same salt production has seen a revival of sorts by local artisans looking to make a quick profit off tourists, but the commercial exports of the past have ceased to exist. Why did the salt industry in one of the most lucrative salt-producing parts of the world collapse in the middle of the twentieth century? Because Scandinavia, their primary market, developed refrigeration.

The sudden evaporation of the salt industry in the Southern Brittany region of France ushered in the end to two millennia of violent, bloody history over a resource that, until seventy-five years ago, was considered one of the most precious commodities in the world. Since Roman times, the island of Noirmoutier, though remote and hard to access, interested the various emperors, kings, clerics, and chieftains who controlled the region not for who lived there but for what they could make there. One such party was the Vikings.

The idea that salt may have attracted the Vikings to the region is well known. French historians have searched for decades for evidence to show that salt played a vital role in the Viking invasions of Western France and Brittany. Unfortunately, the dearth of archeological and textual evidence for a direct link between the salt trade and the Vikings has left them wanting. Although plenty of circumstantial evidence does exist, the absence of anything substantive has relegated the entire topic to the reliquary of Viking Age curiosities.

“10th century Vikings may have been attracted to the area [Noirmoutier] by the salt.”

Bergier, Jean-François, Une Histoire du Sel. Fribourg, Switzerland: Office du Livre, 1982. Pg. 116.

The Salt Hypothesis has its roots in a yet unsolved mystery. In 799 A.D., according to the monk Alcuin, the islands of Aquitaine—which includes the island of Noirmoutier—were attacked by pagans. Historians have debated ad infinitum whether these so-called pagans were Vikings or if they might have been Saracens from Spain. The modern consensus is that the pagans were Vikings, further reinforced by testimony from the monk Ermentaire, who chronicled the attacks in a later text. Thus started what the Breton historian Jean-Christophe Cassard called the Century of the Vikings in Brittany. For the next thirty years, the Vikings repeatedly raided the island of Noirmoutier for its monastery, Saint Philibert. 

A letter written in 819 by Abbott Arnulf of Saint Philibert complained of “frequent and persistent raids.” They occurred so frequently that the monks who resided there fled to a satellite priory on the continent every spring and summer before returning in winter. Nowhere else in Christendom did the Vikings return at such regular intervals, which has begged the question: Why? What did they find so alluring about the island? Especially after the monks started to abandon it in spring, taking their portable wealth with them? 

The most current and accepted theory is that Vikings were interested in the whole region, and the monastery of Saint Philibert was a convenient place to raid. Later, when the Vikings established a foothold on the outskirts of the city of Nantes in 853—a camp on the river island of Betia on the Loire—that may have been true. However, in the first thirty years of raiding, leading up to the definite abandonment of the island by the monks of Saint Philibert in 836, the Vikings had made little effort to raid inland. Hence, I argue, the monastery of Saint Philibert was likely a—if not the—target. 

The Salt Hypothesis proposes that the Vikings returned to the island in spring and summer to raid for salt. They timed their raids to arrive in the peak salt-producing months to export it back to Scandinavia. The Salt Hypothesis further proposes that the Vikings’ need for salt significantly contributed to their westward expansion. Salt, the theory argues, was one of the significant contributing factors that shaped the genesis of the Viking Age.

Of course, attempts to define a single catalyst or trigger event for the genesis of the Viking Age have all proved unfruitful. The archeologist James Barrett called such attempts “unrealistic” in a 2010 paper. He proposed that the start of the Viking Age could only be defined by combining numerous factors into a broader, more general theory. The Salt Hypothesis does not claim that the exploitation of salt in France was anything close to a catalyst but rather a phenomenon that emerged within the context of other longue-durée causes. To learn more about these longue-durée causes, check out my article titled What Caused the Viking Age.

Trouble Brewing in the East

While Anglo-centric historians have defined the Viking Age as having started roughly in 793 with an event in England, recent scholarship has accepted that the Viking Age started much sooner in the East. A treasure trove of silver coins from the Muslim world found at Lake Ladoga gives us some idea of when contacts may have begun. As a standard practice in the Muslim world, coinmakers imprinted minting dates on their coins, and the coins at Lake Ladoga date to the 780s. 

Primary sources for the early societal structure, culture, and activities of the Swedish Vikings, known as the Rus, are practically non-existent. They did not leave us any written sources besides disparate runes carved into wood planks or stones. One mention in the Annals of St. Bertin tells us of a diplomatic delegation from Constantinople that visited Louis I in Aachen in 839 that included Rus. Still, we have no other historical sources predating that mention. Thus, we must turn to archeological evidence.

Combined with further archeological evidence of pre-Viking Age colonies on the eastern shores of the Baltic, such as the Grobin colony in what is now Estonia, trade contacts between Sweden and the Middle East appear to have begun several decades before the Danes and Norwegians launched their first raids against the British Isles and France. Those early contacts appear not to have been violent, either. The earliest graves from the Grobin colony (pre-800s) include women and children, signaling a peaceful colonization effort, whereas later graves (mid-800s and later) contain fighting-aged men and their weapons.

Why the eastward expansion transitioned from trading to raiding remains a complex question with no precise answer. However, they may have been victims of their own success. Of all the longue-durée causes that contributed to the genesis of the eastward expansion and, by extension, the westward expansion, Søren Sindaebek’s synthesis on the role of the silver economy, urbanism, and the movement of durable goods as primary drivers perhaps has the best grasp on solving the mystery. Sindaebek and other historians have stressed at length the importance of the social bonds of the nuclear family, as well as the value of establishing familial ties, leading to a silver economy attached to the cultural practice of the bide-price. As Sindaebek wrote in a 2010 essay:

“My suggestion is, then, that a major motivation or affluent Scandinavian peasants to engage in long-distance exchange – and thus to enter into a silver economy – was that products acquired in this way could ease some of the most controversial issues of their social networks: the negotiations over the longterm status and personal property with which spouses, women in particular, entered into marriage. The incentive for trade and raids alike, I suggest, was ultimately driven by the hubs of family relations: by marriage and the negotiations or the families connected with it.”

Sindbæk, S. M. (2016). Urbanism and exchange in the North Atlantic/Baltic, 600–1000 ce. The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization. T. Hodos, A. Geurds, P. Lane et al. Abingdon, Routledge.

If silver was a fundamental linchpin in the proper functioning of cultural practices that held together nuclear families, silver’s value was paramount to the fabric of society. Value, as economists insist, depends on supply and demand. Therefore, the amount of silver in circulation and its demand had dire consequences for the stability of Viking Age Scandinavian society. Where the supply and demand for silver had remained more or less constant in the two centuries leading up to the Viking Age, an increase in trade in the East threatened to unravel the delicate balance of pre-Viking Age Scandinavia.

Like the economic woes of the 16th century that resulted from the inflationary effect of Spain’s imports of gold from the New World, the influx of Islamic silver may have had a significant inflationary effect on the value of silver in Scandinavia. That effect would have had far-reaching consequences even in the most rural settlements. Given the role of silver in early Viking Age Scandinavian society, a sudden shift in the value of silver across Scandinavia may have threatened the most fundamental ties of the nuclear family. 

In simpler terms, the bride price got too expensive (like housing today).

Following the Salt Trail

In the grip of rampant inflation, the amount of silver needed to afford the bride price may have grown out of reach for most men and their families–at least until the silver economy stabilized. Either these men had to find more silver or something of value to take its place—something valuable to the Rus, who, for obvious reasons, would not have wanted to trade silver for silver. Sindaebek further noted in his essay: 

“The desires and ambitions, which led to the Viking expansion, were developed through generations of travel to distant markets, in search of things that would reset social balances and make social bonds more durable.” 

Sindbæk, S. M. (2016). Urbanism and exchange in the North Atlantic/Baltic, 600–1000 ce. The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization. T. Hodos, A. Geurds, P. Lane et al. Abingdon, Routledge.

When the first Viking raid occurred in England in 793 A.D., they had as their target a monastery. Monasteries were remote and ill-defended, and they owned precious metals such as silver. Historians have classically assumed the Vikings struck monasteries for their silver, which aligns with the silver hypothesis proposed by Sindaebek. Except, the closer we examine the early progression of Viking raids, the less sense it makes that silver was their intended bounty.

That first crew who raided Lindisfarne undoubtedly stole away with plenty of silver and portable goods, including enslaved people (as described by Alcuin and Simeon of Durham). Nevertheless, they never returned to that site, presumably because they understood the monastery would not likely replenish their silver for fear of a repeated raid. Alternatively, perhaps the Vikings did not acquire what they had hoped. Anglo-Saxon England was not silver-rich like the Byzantines and Islamic worlds, so the amount of silver they stole in the first raid may not have made economic sense. There is no way to prove it except to follow the trail of where they raided next. 

Two years later, the monastery on the island of Iona, an island between Ireland and the island of Britain, succumbed to a Viking raid. Iona stands in contrast to Lindisfarne insofar as the Vikings did raid it again, but decades later. Again we have a case of a raid that did not lead to anything more than terrorizing the monastic world. Four years later, the Vikings made a straight shot for Saint Philibert on the island of Noirmoutier, off the coast of France. The progression seems curious. Ireland and, indeed, the whole of the British Isles had copious amounts of ill-defended and remote monasteries to raid. Why would a Viking expedition risk sailing so much further to France to raid the same thing?

Perhaps the Vikings thought a monastery in the Carolingian Empire might have more silver to plunder. If that were the case, we would expect to see that the first raid had remained an isolated incident. The problem is, we know that in that small corner of the Carolingian Empire, the Vikings returned time after time, almost annually, as related to us by the monk Ermentaire. Silver is not a renewable resource, and a monastery plagued by repeat attacks would have learned to keep their silver somewhere else, somewhere safe. 

More curious, the chronicles tell us that after the monks abandoned the island in 836, the Vikings used it as a wintering base, and from detailed analysis of the salt trade in the Carolingian empire, we know salt production increased after they occupied it. The historian Michael McCormick, who specializes in the Carolingian salt trade, wrote in a 2001 article: 

“Salt and bread were basic to life and to Carolingian commerce. The indispensable condiment and preservative is unequally distributed across Europe and has always figured prominently in early exchange systems connecting different ecological zones…Efforts of Carolingian institutions to buy the salt they needed help us to see it traveling by the boatload up the rivers of Frankland, and by the wagonload over its roads. Indeed, the thrifty archbishop of Sens decided to buy inland at Tours one year: rainy weather had driven up the price at Sens of salt from his usual supply source on the Atlantic coast, several hundred kilometers away.”

McCormick, M., F. G. P. M. H. M. McCormick and C. U. Press (2001). Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce AD 300-900, Cambridge University Press. Pg. 698.

Hence, silver does not appear to be the focus of Viking raids and invasions in that part of the world (though they acquired plenty along the way). Their interest in the island of Noirmoutier persisted after the monks abandoned it, and the local production of salt continued to increase under their occupation. Given this evidence, salt looks to be the top candidate for what attracted the Vikings to southwestern France.

Establishing Demand for Salt

The Salt Hypothesis has had a major hurdle in demonstrating a demand for salt in Viking Age Scandinavia important enough to have made salt a primary motive for the Vikings’ westward expansion around the north of the British Isles, through the Irish Sea, and to Southern Brittany in France. As previously discussed, the inflationary effect of the influx of silver from the East required seeking out portable wealth to re-stabilize the economy and, more importantly, close social family bonds. Historians have traditionally cited monastic silver as the Vikings’ primary target and enslaved people as a secondary resource.

The problem with the idea that the Vikings sailed across the sea to loot for silver and enslaved people is that they could have done so with far less risk and much closer to home. We know they raided the Obrodites, the Frisians, and Slavs to the east as early as the 780s. Something else must have driven them further West, something they could not produce readily at home or acquire from their direct neighbors; something they needed more than enslaved people or silver—not for wealth, but for survival.

Since the dawn of civilization, salt has been a crucial resource. It is not a stretch to say there was likely a demand for salt in Scandinavia at the outset of the Viking Age. The question is whether a demand was strong enough to have inspired the first major raids in the British Isles and Western France. For that to have been the case, we would need to demonstrate a critical, life-sustaining need for salt far greater than the mere demands of day-to-day life. 

Food preservation presents an enticing prospect for demonstrating a need for salt strong enough to spur the early Viking diaspora forward. Except, the primary fish they caught, so scholarship has insisted to date, was cod, which the Vikings dried. Hence, a greater commercial demand for salt to preserve their primary food staple hits a stumbling block. If the Vikings dried their fish, they did not need salt in the same quantities as they would need it in the later medieval period, which they used to preserve herring. 

If Viking Age Scandinavians did not need commercial quantities of salt to preserve their food, what other activity might have driven its demand? Looking to the East, the Viking expansion up the freshwater river systems of Eastern Europe to Constantinople may offer us the justification we need. An obscure mention in the Saga of St. Olav gives us a clue that may help to demonstrate a high demand for salt. In the saga, St. Olav died in the land of the Rus and was preserved in a barrel of salt until his retainers could transport his body back to Scandinavia. The mention of a barrel of salt stands out. 

The Vikings moving East, therefore, carried with them salt, ostensibly to preserve perishables while they navigated up the freshwater Volga and Dnieper rivers. Suppose the Rus moving East needed significant quantities of salt for their travels. In that case, their demand might have exceeded the production capabilities of Scandinavia at the time, requiring imports to meet their needs. The Carolingians, however, controlled all the major salt mines in continental Europe—most importantly, Saltzburg—and they restricted trade with Scandinavia starting in the 780s. We know from the sword trade that a black market moved goods across borders between the Carolingians and the Danes, but a black market salt trade may not have satisfied the demands of the Rus. 

To this point, the Salt Hypothesis hits the ceiling. This is where it has lived since historians first started exploring the idea more than a century ago. It is where I have parked it since I started researching the topic over a decade ago. In speaking with other historians, I was advised to move on. And move on, I did. Until…

Cutting Down the Tree with a Herring

A recent study out of Norway has given the Salt Hypothesis new life. In fact, it may have given the Salt Hypothesis the teeth it needs to stick in academia. The study concluded that the herring trade started around 800 rather than 1200, as previously thought. The implications of the study are dramatic. As previously discussed, the major hurdle the Salt Hypothesis had to clear was establishing clear commercial demand on a level that necessitated a westward expansion to satisfy it. Moreover, the study looked at sites on the baltic that would have belonged to the Rus and concluded that they traded significant quantities of herring in the east.

The sites the study surveyed dot along the eastward expansion of the Rus, denoting a high demand for the fish in Rus territories. Analysis of the herring bones strongly indicated the herring was caught in Norway and Denmark and made its way east by trade. It could be that the herring trade began as the commodity the Danes and Norwegians needed to balance out the influx of silver from the East. Except, they needed salt to make it work. Herring is a fattier fish than cod, meaning it cannot be preserved by drying but by salting. If the herring trade began at the outset of the Viking Age, the demand for salt it would have created would have far exceeded Scandinavia’s salt production capabilities at a time when the Carolingians restricted trade. 

“The herring industry of the Baltic Sea supported one of the most important trades in medieval Europe,” Barrett says. “By combining the genetic study of archaeological and modern samples of herring bone, one can discover the earliest known evidence for the growth of long-range trade in herring, from comparatively saline waters of the western Baltic to the Viking Age trading site of Truso in north-east Poland.”

Atmore, L. M., Makowiecki, D., André, C., Lõugas, L., Barrett, J. H., & Star, B. (2022). Population dynamics of Baltic herring since the Viking Age revealed by ancient DNA and genomics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(45), e2208703119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208703119

It was a perfect storm. Islamic silver brought in by the Rus inflated the value of silver. Other groups, such as the Norwegians and Danes, had to exploit a new type of fish to offset the economic imbalance from the influx of silver. That new fish needed salt to preserve it. Scandinavia’s neighbor, the Carolingians, cut off trade to their salt mines. The next natural step is for the Vikings to go looking for salt.

It is unsurprising, given this context, that when the Vikings burst onto the scene in the West, they quickly and intentionally narrowed in on the salt-producing regions of western France and made a business of returning there year after year to exploit a resource they needed to keep their society together. 

Returning to Sindaebek’s silver economy hypothesis, the phenomenon of seeking out salt would only have lasted as long as it took to stabilize the silver economy at home. Therefore, we should expect to see the interest in salt wane by the mid-800s and wane it did. The character of Viking activity in Western France–and indeed the Western world–took a dramatic turn in the middle of the century, shifting from sporadic, isolated raids to full-blown invasion attempts. A fresh set of economic, political, and social conditions motivated later expeditions and are not part of this article’s synthesis. The focus here is on the first thirty years of Viking activity in Western France and the British Isles.

The Monastic Trade Network

As previously discussed, the island of Noirmoutier has produced high-quality salt from water evaporation pools since Roman times. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe experienced several critical transitions. Among them, one of the most critical was the conversion of the Merovingians — a dynasty of Frankish warlords who conquered much of Gaul by the end of the 6th century — to Christianity. Their charismatic leader, Clovis, recognized the advantages of allying with the church and obligated his subjects to join him. The scene of his baptism stands as one of the most celebrated moments in French history. With Clovis on their side, the church expanded quickly across Western Europe and established abbeys and monasteries in every conceivable place the Merovingians would allow. Many of the monks who later earned sainthood lived during this period, including the namesake of the monastery and church at Noirmoutier-en-l’Île: Saint Philibert. 

Saint Philibert grew up in the town of Vic in Southern France. His father was a well-respected magistrate and adviser to King Dagobert I. As was common then, his father convinced the king to find a place for his son at the royal court. Little information exists to describe Philibert’s time among the Merovingian nobility, but according to his biographer Ermentaire, he felt dissatisfied with his time among them and chose instead to dedicate his life to God and join the church as a monk. Perhaps he did feel the need to answer a higher calling, or perhaps he fell out of grace with others in the king’s entourage, a fact his biographer might have omitted on purpose. Whatever his reasons, Philibert received approval for his decision from Dagobert and sold all of his material possessions. For the next decade, he worked in various monasteries and, as far as we know, stayed out of trouble. 

Around 650 A.D., Philibert had earned enough respect and clout within the religious community to set out on a long journey to study the teachings of other notable monks, including (as they are called today) Saint Basil, Saint Macaire, Saint Benoit, and most importantly, the Irish monk Saint Colomban. Philibert had, of course, as his intent to establish his own monastery and holy order of monks based on the accumulated wealth of their teachings, inspired by, and intent to embody the principles of Irish monasticism. By 654, he received a royal charter establishing his first abbey at Jumièges. As the first abbot of Jumièges, he imposed a particularly severe doctrine of austerity known as the Colomban Tradition. During his tenure, he fell out of grace with the Maire of the Palace of Neustria, Ebroïn, and had to flee for his life. Luckily, the bishop of Poitiers, Ansoald, who had admired Philibert’s work at Jumièges, offered him refuge in return for evangelizing his diocese in the St. Colomban tradition. Philibert evidently did fine work, and Ansoald rewarded him with land grants at Déas, in Herbauges, and on the island of Noirmoutier, then called Herio. On the island of Noirmoutier, Philibert founded the monastery that would take his name, and he died there on August 20, 684.

The religious order that took root after his death did not find its footing for several decades. During Charlemagne’s reign, it experienced at least two reorganizations ordered by the church and the Carolingians. It also never achieved full autonomy from the mainland nor developed into a leading intellectual center in the Irish monastic tradition as its founder had hoped. Various bishops, abbots, and other local lords sought to influence the monastery, some going as far as to live there semi-permanently to assert control. If the order had failed to gain dogmatic traction and ritualistic stability, why did it attract so many powerful figures? As is the case today, the main interest lies in the resource it controlled. By the late 8th century, Herio had grown into a major exporter of salt, a resource in high demand in the early medieval period. It is no surprise, therefore, that the lords of the surrounding region and religious leaders across the Christian world sought to capitalize on the island’s potential for wealth. Ansoald, it appears, did not fully appreciate the value of the land he had given to Philibert—or perhaps he did.

Philibert’s biography, Ermentaire’s Miracula (miracles), tells us of the widespread appeal of the island’s salt. Numerous mentions of ships from Brittany, Nantes, and, more importantly, Ireland indicate a thriving trade network that spanned the Western sea routes. A church document from the seventh century tells of a ship loaded with Noirmoutier salt destined for a monastery in Ireland. Given the heavy influence of the Saint Colomban tradition, the monks of Saint Philibert kept in contact with other monasteries in the British Isles founded on the principles of Irish monasticism. Those contacts would have included liturgical exchanges as well as moveable goods.

If salt from Noirmoutier had made its way to Lindisfarne, how would it have gotten there? It would have followed the monastic trade network from the island of Noirmoutier to Ireland, Iona, then over the top of the British Isles to Lindisfarne. If we follow that same trajectory in reverse, it mirrors the trajectory of the first Viking raids.

Telling the Story of the Salt Hypothesis

Norway, 793 A.D.

A small fishing village on the western coast receives a visitor. It is a trade ship from Gotland looking for salted herring to trade to the Rus. The village has herring but laments to the traders that they do not have the salt to preserve it. The merchant who supplied them with salt never showed (the Carolingians cut off trade with the Danes, putting him out of business). Soon, the Swedish ship moves on, disappointed. The village chieftain, Oskar, is disappointed, too, because he needed the silver from the trade to afford the bride price for the neighboring chieftain’s daughter to marry off his son. 

Since the Rus started bringing back hordes of silver from the east, the bride price tripled. Oskar does not understand how or why that is, but he does know they use that silver to buy herring. If he cannot afford the bride price by the next time a Gotland ship arrives to trade, the neighboring chieftain may marry off his daughter to a rival, bringing him a risk of war. The chieftain, desperate to secure the social bonds to preserve peace, organizes an expedition to acquire wealth abroad. 

Arrived in Lindisfarne, the chieftain finds a barrel of salt with large crystals indicative of an evaporation pool technique unavailable in Scandinavia. He questions the monks and takes some as slaves. Over time, one of those slaves learns the language, and the chieftain keeps him as an advisor. While the wealth from Lindisfarne more than afforded the bride price, the chieftain sees an opportunity. He organizes another expedition, this time with the guidance of his enslaved monk, who takes them along the monastic trade route, and raids Iona. Again, they find salt, leading the chieftain to ask where to find its source. The chieftain knows that if he can secure a steady import of salt to prepare his herring, he would make his people rich trading with the East. In 799, he finds Saint Philibert and its salt. From there, he starts the century of Vikings in Brittany, establishing a shipping lane back to Norway to supply the herring fisheries and, by extension, the eastward expansion of the Rus.

Concluding Remarks: 

The idea that salt was essential to the causes of the Viking Age is alluring. It helps to explain some of the enduring mysteries of Viking activity in southwestern France and Brittany, such as the frequency and persistence of the early raids. 

Still, more work must be done to prove the connection between the Vikings’ early westward expansion and salt. Chief among those: more work needs to be done to show the movement of salt within the monastic trade network, which we don’t have. 

Furthermore, while the herring bones found in the baltic have proven interesting, they would need to have been found with salt demonstrably from southwestern France for the Salt Hypothesis narrative to stick. Perhaps one day, the same team who discovered the herring trade started in 800 will look for signs of the salt used to preserve it. 

There are other holes in this story, as I am sure several of you will be more than happy to point out in the comments section. But, the recent study on herring has helped reinvigorate my research and push forward this idea I have wanted to prove or disprove for so long. 

A few years ago, I was invited to participate in a pitch for the Salt Hypothesis for a TV show. Below you will find a link to the video. It shows that I have been on this salty trail for some time, and the new evidence may help to bring the project back to life. At least, that is my hope. Thank you to those who have read this far. You are patient as saints! And until my next blog, cheers!

Link to the video VIKING ISLAND.

The 10 Best Viking History Books For Newbies

As a published historian, teacher, and author of historical fiction novels about the Vikings, I am often asked what books I recommend for people who want to start learning about the Vikings and the Viking Age. Here is a list of ten highly recommended history books about the Vikings, aimed at a general audience and perfect for those just starting to learn about the Viking Age.

Before diving into the world of Viking history books, it is essential to understand the context and significance of the Viking Age. The Viking Age, spanning from around 793 AD to 1066 AD, was a crucial period in European history, marked by the expansion and exploration of the Norse people from Scandinavia. Their legacy continues to captivate historians, archaeologists, and general readers alike.

During the Viking Age, these fierce warriors, skilled traders, and master shipbuilders sailed across the seas, reaching as far as North America, North Africa, and Central Asia. They established settlements, engaged in trade, and formed alliances with various societies, ultimately impacting the regions they encountered.

Viking history books offer readers the opportunity to explore this captivating era, uncovering its complexities and nuances. While the popular image of Vikings as ruthless raiders is indeed a part of their history, it is only a fraction of their story. Viking history books delve into a wide range of topics, from their extraordinary seafaring abilities and advanced shipbuilding techniques to their complex social structure, religious beliefs, and artistic expressions.

The study of Viking history also provides valuable insights into medieval Europe’s political and cultural landscape. As the Vikings interacted with diverse societies, they influenced and were influenced by the people they encountered. This exchange led to the spread of ideas, technologies, and cultural practices, shaping the development of Europe in significant ways.

By reading Viking history books, you will gain a deeper understanding of the Viking Age and discover the interconnectedness of the broader historical narrative. The Viking Age serves as a fascinating reminder of human societies’ resilience, ingenuity, and adaptability, showcasing the indelible mark left by the Norse people over the course of history.

So, whether you are a history enthusiast, a curious reader, or someone with a keen interest in the Viking Age, this list of Viking history books is the perfect starting point for your journey into the captivating world of the Vikings.

Viking History Books List“The Vikings: A History” by Robert Ferguson is a comprehensive account of the Viking Age, exploring their culture, society, and impact on Europe. This is my top pick for people just starting out on the subject.“The Age of the Vikings” by Anders Winroth is an engaging book that provides an overview of Viking history, focusing on the intricacies of their society and the factors that led to their rise and eventual decline.“The Norsemen in the Viking Age,” by Eric Christiansen, is an accessible albeit heady book that examines the overall impacts of the Viking Age on Scandinavia and the rest of Europe, emphasizing the thorough evaluation of the scholarly work that has informed our narrative for what happened.“The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings” by Neil Price is a fascinating examination of Viking life, culture, and beliefs, shedding light on their rich and complex society.“Men of Terror,” by William Short and Reynir Oskarson, is an entertaining and informative guide to the mindset, beliefs, and battle tactics of the Vikings, offering an immersive look at their world.“Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga,” edited by William W. Fitzhugh and Elisabeth I. Ward, is a collection of essays and articles covering various aspects of Viking history, culture, and exploration, providing a comprehensive and engaging overview.“The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings,” edited by Peter Sawyer, is an illustrated volume that offers a detailed look at Viking history, with contributions from leading scholars in the field.“The Viking World,” by James Graham-Campbell, is a well-illustrated and accessible introduction to the Viking Age, providing an overview of their history, culture, and accomplishments.“The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings,” by John Haywood, is an atlas that combines informative text with detailed maps and illustrations, offering a visual and engaging journey through Viking history.“The Norse Myths: A Guide to the Gods and Heroes,” by Carolyne Larrington, is a captivating exploration of the myths and legends of the Vikings, providing valuable insights into their beliefs, values, and worldview.

These books offer a solid foundation for understanding the Viking Age, providing a range of perspectives on their history, culture, and society. They cater to a general audience, making them accessible and enjoyable for readers just starting out in their exploration of a time and place so often mythologized and misunderstood.

If you would like to learn more about the Vikings in other mediums, check out my podcast channel Vikingology: The Art and Science of the Viking Age.

Did the Vikings Wear Helmets?

It is a well-established fact among historians and archeologists that the Vikings did not wear horns on their helmets. There is no consensus, however, in regards to whether they wore helmets at all. A curious gap in the archeological record has led to a frustrating controversy in academia and reenactment circles alike. Until 2009, only one Viking Age helmet had ever been found, whereas archeologists have discovered countless swords, axes, shield bosses, and even ships. That so few helmets have ever been found begs the question: did the Vikings wear helmets? If they did, what happened to them all?

Two divergent camps have formed over the question of whether the Vikings wore helmets. There are those who believe the Vikings did, in fact, wear helmets, and that the gap in the archeological record is a fluke. The other camp finds the lack of evidence in the archeological record telling. Perhaps the Vikings—the early Vikings, at least—wore no helmets at all. The following are the arguments for and against.

The argument against Viking helmets:

To date, archeologists have only recovered one Viking Age helmet in Scandinavia (pictured below). It dates to the 9th century and is named the Gjerbundu helmet. It is the most popular style of helmet reproduced for historical reenactment, and for good reason—it has no real competitors. Other items such as swords, axes, various articles of clothing, ships, and even maille have been more commonly found in Viking Age burials and dig sites, which has led many to question whether helmets were ever commonly worn by the warrior class of the time.

The Gjerbundu Helmet

In 2009, a mass grave in Weymouth, England thought to contain the remains of a massacred Viking army was advertised by the museum that put together the collection as having revealed a well-preserved helmet with an eyepiece uncharacteristic of Anglo-Saxon headgear. While the helmet has made the rounds on the internet as evidence of another example of a Viking helmet found in England, it turns out the helmet was a fabrication to put a jawbone into context. So, the only other Viking helmet ever found is a fake.

In the last few decades, a spattering of helmet fragments have been found, but they are too incomplete to be helpful in the discussion. Some will argue that helmets were re-smelted and reused for other things, which might explain their rarity. This argument holds little merit considering the metal from many other commonly found metal artifacts would make for much easier repurposing, but we still find plenty of those in the ground. The fact that helmets are such a rare find is a strong indication that, at the very least, iron helmets were not commonly made or utilized. Until more artifacts are found, the presumption should be that Viking Age Scandinavians did not commonly wear helmets.

The argument for Viking helmets:

The lack of archeological specimens of helmets does not necessarily indicate that they were not commonly used. Metal was in high demand in the Viking Age, and even more so later in the medieval period. Quality metals, such as those found in helmets, may have been melted down, refined, and repurposed, which may help to explain the lack of helmets in the archeological record. 

There is evidence in the historical record, such as in the representation of a Viking attack on Guérande in the Miracles of St. Aubin (pictured below), that the Norsemen did wear helmets. Helmets are also mentioned in the sagas as being important and valuable possessions for warriors.

Vikings attack Guerende, from the Miracles of St. Aubin

A couple of picture stones from the Viking Age also appear to show warriors in helmets. The Stora Hammars Stone in particular represents men with conical heads, which many believe to show helmets.

We also know that helmets were commonly used in Scandinavia before the Viking Age.  Archeologists have found several helmets from the Vendel period in Sweden, around the 6th century, which bear a striking resemblance to the Sutton Hoo helmet dated to the same period. It is unlikely that Scandinavians of the Viking Age would have regressed so far as to give up on helmets. The technology was there and coupled with the artifacts we do have, and the historical and hagiographic record, we can say that the Vikings, at least the wealthy ones, did wear helmets. 

Who is right?

There is not enough information to give a definitive answer. A lack of helmets in the archeological record poses a particularly perplexing argumentative problem because it neither proves nor disproves the widespread use of helmets by the Vikings. Those who argue against the widespread use of helmets will never be able to prove they weren’t used. This problem is further compounded by artistic representations by chroniclers from the time whose artwork may or may not be accurate. Short of a lucky find of a mass grave containing numerous helmet-clad warriors, we may never know for sure. Thus, for now, all we can really say is that we don’t know, but one person in Gjerbundu, Norway, at least, wore a helmet!

Did the Vikings Raid in Spain? A Brief History of the Spanish Experience of the Viking Age.

The Vikings traveled far and wide. No place in Europe with a coast or river, it seems, escaped their influence. While most media focuses on the English experience of the Viking Age–the Anglophone world tends to be anglo-centric, after all–we have a great deal more we can learn by looking at the other areas the Vikings roved. Spain’s experience of the Viking Age stands to teach us a great deal because Muslims occupied the Iberian peninsula and their chroniclers offer us a fresh perspective on the Vikings and their raids.

Spain During the Viking Age

Islam spread quickly across the southern Mediterranean Basin during the life of its prophet Muhammad and even faster after his death. Under the Umayyad Caliphs, their territorial expansion created an empire that bordered China in the East and the Atlantic Ocean in the West. The Abbasid Caliphs, who rose to power to replace the Umayyads, took a particular interest in the arts and sciences, with an immense fascination for Hellenistic (i.e., Ancient Greek) and Persian history and culture. Their infatuation led to a cultural revolution, which influenced the writings of the leading Islamic scholars of the day. Significant scientific advancements in cosmology and mathematics occurred throughout the 7th and 8th Centuries.

The Islamic empire had an advanced postal system to relay information across the vast expanses of their territory. It connected the empire’s furthest reaches with its administrative center, Baghdad. The Islamic world kept track of the lands they conquered through the postal system. One group of people, in particular, gave them cause for concern and feature prominently in the primary sources. These were the Vikings. Arabic writings of the time referred to the Vikings by two names: ar-Rus and al-Madjus.

The name ar-Rus described the Swedish Vikings who navigated the Dnieper and Volga rivers and whom the Muslims encountered on the shores of the Black Sea. The name al-Madjus described the Vikings in the West, those who terrorized the coasts of Ireland, France, and Spain. Arab scholars used the name al-Madjus to describe the culture of the Vikings as they perceived it: a culture of fire-worshipers. They likened the al-Madjus to the Persian Zoroastrians, both of whom cremated their dead. The thirteenth-century chronicler Ibn Said explained, “nothing seems more important to them than fire, for the cold in their lands is severe.”

The Muslim Sources and Some of Their Challenges

Contemporary Muslim sources present a similar challenge to their Christian counterparts. The sources historians have to work with are a mosaic of reconstructed documents written decades and centuries after the fact. The first chroniclers, such as the historian Ahmad al-Razi, his son Isa-ibn-Ahmad, and the scholar Ibn al-Qutyyia, have no surviving works to draw upon for study. We know their names and their stories because later chroniclers reference them. As historians must do with Christian sources with the same problems, they must cross-reference any referencing to the Vikings and their activities with other disparate sources.

The two most authoritative surviving works about the early attacks on Spain were written by the 10th-century scholars Ibn Al Qutiyya and Ibn Hayyan’s Al Muqtabis. Christian sources, chiefly the Annales Bertinian from the Carolingian Empire and the Asturian Chronicles from Galicia complement the Muslims’ testimony. Additional sources from Christians include Dudo of Saint Quentin, William of Jumièges, the Annals of St-Bertin, the Chronicle of Regino de Prüm, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

Further complicating things, the Muslim sources lack the consistency of nomenclature in referring to the Vikings. The earliest sources tell us that the Muslims of the 9th and 10th Centuries understood that they were dealing with a single people, whether they encountered them on the shores of Spain, the Mediterranean, or the Eastern Steppes. The historian al-Yaqubi, for example, did not differentiate between the Vikings in the East and West. In one of his works, he claimed that “the Madjus, who are called the Rus,” attacked Seville. We know the Rus did not attack Spain, so the nomenclature mistake, while frustrating, is telling.

The First Wave of Vikings in Spain

Although some evidence suggests earlier incursions into Iberia by the al-Madjus, the currently accepted historical start of Viking raids in Spain date to the attack on Seville in 844 A.D. Using a mixture of Christian and Muslim Chronicles to track the Vikings’ movements, historians have pieced together a reasonably coherent narrative of the Iberian experience during the Viking Age. 

The sources tell us that a fleet of ships that had raided the Carolingian Empire sailed from the Bay of Biscay into Northern Spain. There they raided a few settlements before encountering a large force of Asturians under the command of King Ramiro I. The Vikings suffered a crushing defeat and retreated to an island base on the French coastline. There is much debate over the base’s location, but it may have been as close as Bayonne.

A few months later, a larger fleet of eighty ships appeared off the coast of Lisbon, where they fought and won three sea battles against Muslim ships. They then headed south to the mouth of the Guadalquivir, made their way inland, and sacked the city of Seville, which they occupied. The attack was so unexpected that Cordova, the administrative center of Islamic Spain, called al-Andalus, lacked a response. It took them weeks to muster an army to drive out the Vikings from the city. Following the Vikings’ bold incursion into his lands, Emir Abd al-Rahman II ordered the construction of a new fleet of ships to counter al-Madjus raids.

The Emir sent a Moorish ambassador, al-Ghazal, to learn about their new enemy. His account tells of his voyage to a splendid island with lush, flowering plants and abundant streams leading to the ocean. For years historians struggled to gather consensus on where he had traveled. Some believe he visited Ireland, while others believe he visited Denmark. The source for al-Ghazal’s embassy to Ireland is a document by Abu-l-Kattab-Umar-ibn-al-Hasan-ibn-Dihya, born in Valencia in Andalucia, about 1159 A.D. The facts and anecdotes in the story were derived from Tammam-ibn-Alqama, vizier under three consecutive amirs in Andalucia during the ninth century, who died in 896. Tammam-ibn-Alqama had allegedly learned the details directly from al-Ghazal and his companions. The only manuscript of ibn-Dihya’s work has d at the British Museum since 1866. It is titled Al-mutrib min ashar ahli’l Maghrib, which translates as An amusing book from poetical works of the Maghreb.

Al-Ghazal’s testimony offers a glimpse into how the Muslims viewed the Vikings. His story speaks of a vast moral gulf regarding sexuality, fidelity, and loyalty. During his stay, he claims, he had an affair with the chieftain’s wife, and he commented at length about her privileged position and power within the community, which stood in contrast to the Muslim view of how women should behave. Historians take his testimony with great caution–his evident bias undermines his credibility, and it is uncertain whether some of his remarks were inserted by later writers.

Al-Ghazal was not the only ambassador to travel north to meet the Vikings, although he is thought to have been the only Muslim ambassador to have launched from Spain. Others, such as Ibn-Fadlan, visited the Rus in the East and studied them in detail. Ibn-Fadlan’s account is one of the most universally known and well-studied documents about the Vikings produced by a Muslim.

The Second Wave

We have no record of any other attacks by the al-Madjus from 844 until 859, when an ambitious man named Hasting made an infamous incursion into the Mediterranean. With the help of his close friend Bjorn Ironside, a supposed son of Ragnar Lothbrok, Hasting sailed to Iberia on his way to the Mediterranean, hoping to gain fame and fortune by pillaging Rome. At first, the expedition did not fare well. The Asturians of Northern Spain fought them off, forcing the expedition to continue southward without loot. They successfully pillaged coastal settlements until they arrived at Gibraltar, where a storm blew them off course. They landed in North Africa and raided for slaves before resuming their original intended course.

According to the chronicler Dudo of St. Quentin, Hasting was ambitious and sought to sack Rome itself. So the story goes, the walls of the city were too tall and well-fortified. Thus he hatched one of the more notorious plans to take the city by creating a ruse to trick the “naïve” Christians. They arrived at the city and sent a messenger to inform the bishop that their leader had been mortally wounded and, in his dying moments, wished to be baptized so that he might reach salvation. The bishop took pity on him and organized the ceremony. The next day, the Norsemen returned to the city to inform the bishop that their chieftain had died and that he had requested burial in the city. Again, the bishop took pity on them and organized the funeral. They placed Hasting’s body on a bier and carried him inside the city. A gathering of noblemen and clergypersons joined them to begin the ceremony when Hasting rose from the dead, snatched the sword beside him, and cut down the bishop.

The ruse proved successful. They sacked the city and loaded their ships with loot. As they sailed from the city, they realized they had made a navigational error. The city they had sacked was not Rome but a smaller settlement called Luna, some two hundred miles north of their intended target. Nevertheless, Hasting ordered a return to his base on the Loire. However, as they attempted to sail past Gibraltar, a Muslim fleet intercepted them, destroying a significant portion of the Viking fleet with Greek Fire. Their chieftain survived and returned to his base on the island of Herius (today called Noirmoutier) with twenty ships, a mere third of the ships he had departed with three years earlier.

The Third Wave

Arabic sources tell of a third wave of attacks beginning in 966 A.D., over 100 years after the conclusion of Hasting’s expedition. Where this fleet came from is not entirely clear, but there is strong evidence to suggest they launched from Normandy after having helped Duke Richard I suppress a rebellion in his duchy. They arrived in Galicia and did what they are known best for: they pillaged. In response to the attack, the bishop of Santiago de Compostela, an important pilgrimage site, gathered an army to fend them off. By sheer bad luck, the bishop took an arrow to the neck and died during their second battle. Devastated, his troops retreated, and the Vikings continued terrorizing the surrounding countryside. For three years, they attacked and plundered Galicia. Historians disagree over why their long-term presence did not turn into a settlement as it had in Ireland, Britain, and Normandy. Nevertheless, in 972, they made one last major push for plunder, and returned home.

The Fourth Wave

Beginning in the year 1008, a new threat emerged from the north with its sights on Galicia. Again, regular seasonal raids struck terror in the hearts of the Spaniards. In 1038, a renewed raid struck the town of Tui, led this time by Olav Haraldsson, heir to the throne of Norway. They captured the bishop and held him for ransom, though the sources do not give us much detail on this interaction. Olav’s chroniclers, Sigvat and Ottar, heavily reference their patron’s successes in Galicia, earning him the name “the Galician Wolf.”

A Small but Significant Experience

Ultimately, Spain experienced the more minor brunt of the Viking Age compared with areas such as Ireland, Britain, and France. However, both the Christian kingdoms and Muslim territories in Iberia suffered terrible wounds from the raids. Arguably, the Viking attacks on al-Andalus encouraged the Muslims of Spain and North Africa to fortify their seaborne fleets, which helped the Islamic world maintain naval supremacy in the Mediterranean over Christendom until the high middle ages. This may have directly affected the course of the crusades and, indeed, the course of history in Europe. Spain is not often the focus of Viking Age events, but their experience is crucial to understanding the Viking Age.